Suspicious Circumstances Read Free Page A

it was technically a bed. It was about the size of a badminton court and covered with newspapers and letters and telephones and boxes of flowers and a breakfast tray. Somewhere in the middle of it all, tiny but dominating every acre of pink satin spread, lay Mother. She was fully dressed in black slacks, a pink blouse and scarlet-framed glasses with rhinestones, and was curled in a ball reading a movie script. She glanced up rather crossly when she heard someone, then, seeing it was me, dropped the script, pulled off the glasses and smiled a blissful smile.
    ‘Nickie — darling.’
    She stretched out both her arms to me. There was so much bed between us that, even by stretching my own arms full out, I wasn’t anywhere near her. I swung myself on to the bed and she grabbed me, hugged me and then pushed me away with her iron grip on my shoulders, studying me from those huge, swooning eagle eyes.
    ‘My poor darling. You hated to come home, didn’t you? Return Impossible. Novel at crucial stage. What was it, dear? Some divine little girl?’
    I might have known Mother would have smelled that out, but, demoralized as I was, I still had enough wit to realize it would be fatal if she got her teeth into Monique at this stage of the game. Instead I launched a strategic counter-attack.
    ‘But why didn’t you tell me what it was all about? What’s happening anyway?’
    ‘But, Nickie.’ Mother’s eyes did that widening bit so that the white showed all around her pupils. ‘Don’t they know in France about poor Norma? This afternoon is her funeral. You couldn’t have missed her funeral.’
    I looked at her, trying to fathom what was going on in her mind. I don’t know why I ever bothered because it never got me anywhere. Had I been dragged from Monique’s arms merely because Mother saw me as an essential prop for her funeral characterization? ‘Anny Rood, stricken with grief, is supported by her son from her old friend’s grave?’
    ‘So that’s all?’ I said, prepared to be relieved but indignant too.
    ‘All?’ Mother looked shocked. ‘That is what you call it — all? How can you be so cynical? You young — you are all wild, jungle beasts. Norma was our friend. Our dear old friend. And when a friend falls down the stairs and breaks her neck, that is not — all. That is tragic. Remember that, you heartless, cynical child.’
    ‘I just thought…’ I began.
    ‘Thought — what?’
    ‘That there might be the stink of the world. I mean, if the columnists or the scandal magazines latched on to the fact that Ronnie is potty about you and…’
    I’d expected another explosion but, as always, I’d got Mother quite wrong. She merely smiled a musing smile. ‘Potty! What a peculiar word. You picked it up at that boring English school. Perhaps it was a mistake to send you there. Those terrible purple and black caps.’ The smile became sentimental. ‘Darling, Ronnie isn’t potty about me. If you were older, you’d realize that relationships between men and women don’t always have to be lurid and dreary. What Ronnie feels for me is just a sweet, perfectly natural affection.’
    ‘Are the columnists old enough to see it that way?’ I said.
    ‘And gratitude,’ said Mother, looking modest.
    ‘For busting up his little fling with old Who-Is-Sylvia?’
    ‘For rescuing him, darling. Honestly, that poor Ronnie - he was quite, quite out of his depth. We all know he sees himself as a Big Casanova just because he has an occasional kicking up of heels with some dumb little starlet and, Norma being the way she is, who could exactly blame him? But this - it was like a fleecy lamb with a tigress. That Sylvia La Mann — She’s the most dangerous female in Hollywood, particularly now that her contract has lapsed and there are no more Texas tycoons swarming around and She’s positively struggling for her existence. If someone hadn’t done something, she’d have had Ronnie whisked through the divorce courts up to the