isn’t her idea. She wanted that girl—the one who did the article about her in Woman of Today. She thought she was simpatico.’
‘It was certainly a very flattering article,’ Alix said drily. ‘I doubt if the same note of unquestioning admiration could be sustained for a whole book. Has she met this Mr Brant? Perhaps he’s simpatico too.’
‘He’s coming here this morning.’ Monty sounded dour. ‘And she says she won’t see him. A nice start that is!’
A nice start indeed, Alix thought resignedly, bidding her holiday goodbye for ever. She was back in the thick of it, and no mistake.
She lifted the dark fall of hair wearily from her neck. ‘If he’s the publishers’ choice, then we may be stuck with him, unless she can come up with a better reason for turning him down than she’d rather it was someone else. And it won’t do to antagonise him. I’ll talk to her.’
‘I wish you would,’ said Monty, and that was an admission coming from her. She sounded tired, Alix thought. Perhaps the last three weeks had been more trying than usual, although after all these years Monty should be used to Bianca’s vagaries. ‘Leave your cases. I’ll get Harris to see to them.’
Harris and his wife occupied a small flat in the basement. They took care of the house when Bianca was away, and when she was in residence, Harris was a total manservant, doing most of the fetching and carrying around the household, but acting as butler when the occasion demanded, while Mrs Harris was a divine cook.
They had worked for Bianca for a long time too, and they seemed impervious to the storms which periodically rocked the household, or perhaps they stayed because the wages were good, and the perfect employer didn’t exist anyway, Alix sometimes thought, amused.
She ran upstairs and paused outside the door of Bianca’s first floor suite, wondering whether to knock. Bianca usually catnapped during the morning, and she hated being caught doing it. But even as Alix hesitated, she heard the unmistakable crash of shattering glass coming from behind the door. She smiled grimly, turned the handle and went into the room.
‘I do hope that wasn’t a mirror,’ she said lightly. ‘I don’t think we can do with seven years’ bad luck.’
It was a vase of flowers. Broken glass, water and sad-looking blooms were strewn across the carpet at Bianca’s feet. Alix thought detachedly that she looked magnificent, even if the flush in her cheeks was caused by temper rather than excitement or good health.
The huge emerald eyes, which had been staring straight ahead, focussed on Alix and sharpened.
Bianca said, ‘So it’s you. Where the hell have you been?’
Alix suppressed a sigh. ‘So nice to be needed,’ she said drily. ‘I’ve been on holiday, in case you’ve forgotten—to Rhodes. Didn’t you get my card?’
‘I may have done,’ Bianca gave an irritable shrug. ‘The girl they sent from the agency has been dealing with the mail. My God, what a mistake that was!’
‘Wasn’t she any good?’ Alix fetched a discarded newspaper from the table beside the chaise-longue and began to gather the broken glass and wilted flowers on to it.
‘Useless. It’s all her fault that this frightful man is coming here this morning. She made the appointment without consulting me. Well, you’ll just have to get rid of him, Alix. Telephone him. Tell him I’m ill—tell him anything. I won’t see him. I won’t!’ There was an hysterical note in Bianca’s voice and Alix glanced up at her, her brows drawing together in a faint frown.
She said equably, ‘Very well. But what shall I say when he asks for another appointment? And he surely will. This is a commission, and he won’t want to lose out.’
Bianca’s perfectly painted mouth twisted sullenly. ‘Oh God, you sound just like Seb! He won’t help at all. He says I’ve agreed that my life story should be written, and the best thing I can do is co-operate.’ She swore viciously. ‘Some public relations man he turned out to be!’
‘He’s one of the best,’ Alix said, faintly amused. ‘And his advice is probably good.’
Bianca gestured wildly. ‘But I don’t want his advice. I just want him to get rid of this terrible man—this Brant.’
Alix retrieved a sliver of glass from the carpet with a certain amount of care.
‘How do you know he’s so terrible? He might be charming. If you met him you might like him.’
‘I would not.’ Bianca made it sound like a solemn vow. ‘He writes the most awful things. He did the Kristen Wallace book last year, and he made her sound like a neurotic bitch.’
‘Well, isn’t she?’ In spite of her care, Alix had cut her finger on a splinter, and she sucked the blood reflectively.
‘Of course,’ Bianca said impatiently. ‘But he had no right to say so.’
Alix hadn’t read the book, but she could remember Bianca doing so with gurgles of enjoyment, and she knew now why the name seemed familiar. The Wallace biography had caused a sensation because it had exploded a myth once and for all. Kristen Wallace had acquired a reputation for playing serious roles in films which relied heavily on prolonged silences and heavy symbolism for their impact. In the book, Kristen had been encouraged to talk about her work, which she had done at length, revealing in the process that she hadn’t, in all probability, understood one word of the deeply significant lines she was called on to say. The real genius, it had been suggested, was Miss Wallace’s dialogue coach. Alix remembered one critic had called the book, ‘A devastating insight into a deeply trivial mind.’ One thing was certain: Kristen Wallace had been a laughing stock afterwards, and she hadn’t made a film since.
‘He’s a hatchet man—a real swine,’ Bianca railed. ‘I don’t want that kind of thing written about me.’
Alix began to smile. She said, ‘That’s hardly likely. You’re not a pretentious idiot like La Wallace.’
‘I don’t want anyone like that poking about in my private life,’ Bianca said with finality.
One answer to that was that there was no aspect of Bianca’s life which could be considered private, but Alix wasn’t brave enough to suggest it. Her affairs, her marriages, and her divorces had all been conducted in the full glare of the publicity spotlight. There could be few details about them that the great reading public didn’t already know, ad nauseam.
‘So you’ll telephone him now,’ Bianca persisted. ‘And when you’ve done that, you can phone Seb and tell him he’s fired.’
‘Just as you say,’ Alix agreed cheerfully. There was no problem about the last instruction. Seb had a fireproof contract, and he was used to Bianca’s tempers. He said they added further colour to life’s rich tapestry.
She disposed of the broken glass and flowers, and told Monty regretfully about the soaked carpet, then went off to the room she used as an office.
The agency girl might have roused Bianca’s ire, but she seemed to be a neat worker. The desk was immaculate, and the carbons of the correspondence she had dealt with were all clipped together by the typewriter so Alix could familiarise herself with everything that had happened while she was away.
