and briefcases start to push each other out of the way, saying “Do you mind!?” in indignant voices. It seems a silly thing to say because they obviously do mind.
“There he is!” Penny sees him first. A mane of shaggy black hair encircled by a yoke of astrakhan, pokes out of one of the windows and then withdraws. He must be getting his case. A minute passes and the guard blows his whistle.
“What’s the matter with him?”
Penny and I charge up the platform and come level with the appropriate compartment as the train starts to move. Inside, Robin Brentford is sitting calmly, reading a copy of Variety. Beside him sits a blonde youth wearing a green velvet suit and reading a copy of Gay News.
“Mr. Brentford! Mr Brentford!”
Super Star switches on a thousand watt smile and waves a hand indulgently. “Sorry, girls. I never sign autographs while the train is in motion. I might jar my wrist.”
“This is it!” I screech. “We’re from St Rodence. You get off here!” Robin Brentford pales and then springs into action. A few seconds later, he and his friend have arrived in an untidy heap on the platform.
“Oh my God!” says the blonde youth clutching the lapels of his suit. “My nerves have all gone to pieces.”
“Calm yourself, Jeremy,” says Robin. “Worse things happen at sea, as my old wardrobe mistress used to say.”
“She never had to put up with this!” sniffs Jeremy. “If I’d known what I was letting myself in for I’d have stayed at home and tilled the window box. It’s looking like a wasteland!”
“‘Let us go then, when the evening is spread out against the sky.’” Robin takes our hands in both of his and looks up and down the platform. “Where are the crowds?”
I am still wondering about the evening but Penny is swift to answer.
“We thought you’d prefer to travel incognito so we didn’t tell anybody,’ she says.
“Oh.” Robin looks disappointed. “That’s why I nearly went past the station, you know. When I saw that there was no one here, I thought ‘this can’t be the place.’ Are you all right?” His remark is addressed to me. With his long curling moustache and dark mournful eyes he is exactly like his photographs and I am finding it difficult to keep control of myself. I have never been so close to a famous person before.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m sorry Syllabub isn’t here to meet you but she was doing the pools.”
“The football pools?” asks Jeremy.
“No. She was spraying the swimming pools against tsetse fly.”
“Syllabub? Syllabub?” Robin looks puzzled.
“Your daughter.”
“Do I have a daughter called Syllabub? That’s amazing. You don’t know who her mother was, do you? It doesn’t matter. I expect I’ll recognise her when I see her. Come, Jeremy.” He turns to me. “If you can drop us off at the hotel. We’ll only take a few minutes to freshen up.”
“We haven’t booked a hotel,” I say, feeling awful. “We didn’t know you were going to stay the night.”
Robin looks horrified. “One couldn’t possibly bury oneself in the wilds of the country and disinter oneself, all in one day. Provision must be made, my dear.”
“I suppose we could find something at The Lamb and Cuspidor,” I say. “It’s not very grand, but—”
“The village pub. How does that appeal to you, Jeremy?”
Jeremy shudders. “I find the idea positively sick-making. You know I get a bilious attack just looking at the facade of The Hilton.”
I can’t quite make up my mind about Jeremy. He is too old to be Robin’s son and yet they obviously have a very close relationship. At least he does not represent the same threat as a woman. I don’t know what it is but there seems something faintly effeminate about him. I ask Penny what she thinks as we stagger along behind, carrying the suitcases.
“Robin and batman,” she says. It takes me a little while to realise what she means and then I get it. She is making a joke. By the time I get around to asking her what she really thinks, we are at the car.
“We’re not all supposed to get in this, are we?” says Robin irritably. “Remember, I’m a star, not a midget act. Brentford is an easier way of spelling charisma.”
“I told you,” I hiss to Penny. “If you’d listened to me—”
“Shut up!” Penny stops speaking out of the corner of her mouth and we watch the last taxi pull out of the station forecourt. “I’m afraid it’s all there is,” she says, smiling sweetly.
Robin groans. “To think I cancelled a masonic dinner to come here. Come on, let’s get it over with.” He scrambles into the car and then has to scramble out again so that Jeremy and I can get in the back seat. Really! It is so blush-making. We are jammed closer together than a couple of pilchards and my skirt rides up my thighs. I suppose Penny was right about my clothes. They are a bit tight and revealing.
“It’s an awful squash, isn’t it?” I say.
“Uuuum.” Jeremy is a good-looking boy but he seems terribly shy. When I think what liberties some people would take in a situation like this, the mind boggles. Not, of course, that I want Jeremy to behave like that. It is just that a girl likes to know that men find her attractive. Jeremy must be getting a crick in the neck the way he is trying to peer out of the window.
“Do watch where you’re going!” snaps Robin. Penny does not seem to be making a lot of progress in the front seat. “How does this safety belt work?”
“You have to untwist it first. Here, let me.” Of course I do not intend to dangle my boobs in front of Robin’s face as I lean over his shoulder. It just happens that way. Some men might count themselves fortunate, my bust is one of my best features, but Brentford sheers away like I am some kind of tarantella. What is the matter with my fatal allure? Maybe it really is fatal.
“Please drive more slowly!” gasps Super Star. “Remember, you have a million dollars worth of dream fodder to nurture.”
“I’m sorry. We’re going to be late for the play if I don’t get a move on.”
Robin leans forward nervously. “I’d rather catch the second act than the first act up there.” He jerks his eyes heavenwards.”
“The act of the apostles,” says Penny brightly, overtaking a furniture van on the inside—practically on the inside of the furniture van.
“Precisely,” groans Brentford. “Be a love and pass me my pills, Jeremy.”
“I’ve just eaten them all.”
“Drat! How typically thoughtless of you. You’re so inconsiderate I could spit!”
“Sticks and stones!” Jeremy flicks his hand as if trying to jerk it off his wrist.
“Here we are,” I say cheerfully. “The Lamb and Cuspidor.”
Robin looks out of the window and shudders. “Have we got to stay there? It looks like a public urinal.”
“It is a public urinal. The pub is next door.”
Robin shifts his gaze. “I think I’d prefer the public urinal,” he says after a pause.
“You’ll probably have to share a room,” says Penny. “Will that be all right?”
“I expect we’ll make out,” says Robin gruffly. Jeremy does not say anything.
I know it is silly but I feel quite upset at the thought of Jeremy and Robin sharing a room. Of course I have no intention of becoming physically involved with Robin, the whole idea