copy of which two women at the next-door table were avidly reading. In it some outwardly respectable ageing actress had told all and more to Amber’s mother, Janey Lloyd-Foxe.
‘I cannot understand why celebs suddenly reveal sordid details about their past,’ said Bonny disapprovingly.
‘For money,’ said Seth, forking up Bonny’s rejected mushrooms, ‘or to sell books. My sister and I,’ he added idly, ‘are going to sue our parents.’
‘Whatever for, Seth?’
‘Because neither of them sexually abused us and consequently gave us nothing with which to spice up interviews or our autobiographies.’
‘Oh Seth.’ Bonny, who wore no mascara to run, burst into tears.
‘Earth’s the matter?’ asked Seth, reaching across and tugging Alan’s yellow silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket and handing it to Bonny.
‘I was abused by both my father and my stepfather,’ she sobbed.
‘Can’t really blame them.’
‘Seth,’ thundered Martin, adding, ‘That’s what makes you so able to express suffering in your acting, Bonny.’
‘Certainly the abuse I suffered informed my life experience, Martin,’ sniffed Bonny. ‘Through therapy, I recognized I must put myself first for a change. I recognized my own fragility. The Blossoming is indeed resonant of my special trauma.’
‘Can you pass the potatoes?’ demanded Corinna.
‘I’m sensitive, me,’ piped up Cindy, ‘but one has to move on.’
‘My goal this year is to internationalize the Bonny Richards phenomenon,’ said Bonny.
‘That won’t be hard,’ gushed Romy. ‘Charity work would raise your profile. Your voice alone would do it, you have such a fascinating accent.’
‘I spent a lot of time in the States.’
‘About three minutes,’ snarled Corinna.
‘Land of the freesome,’ giggled Alan, who was already drunk.
72
It was nearly time for the Best Dressed Lady contest. Competitors were powdering their noses.
‘Neither of you need do a thing to improve your faces,’ Seth told Romy and Bonny, but they still went off to the Ladies.
‘I cannot understand your mother-in-law, allowing Debbie to force her into that dreadful hat,’ murmured Bonny as she tilted her little pink pillbox.
‘Etta’s always been a wet blanket,’ murmured back Romy, adjusting her gentian-blue picture hat. ‘Not up to Martin’s wonderful father’s speed at all.’
‘I can’t figure out why she bugs me,’ mused Bonny. ‘I guess it’s the way she hangs on Valent’s and Seth’s every word like a hysterical spaniel, laughing at their jokes. Do you know what Seth calls her?’
‘Tell me.’
‘“Sorry with the fringe on top,” because she never stops apologizing!’
‘Sorry with the fringe on top! How priceless.’ Romy burst out laughing. ‘Do let’s lunch.’
The loudspeaker crackled.
‘Will all the runners in the Best Dressed Lady competition please make their way to the winners enclosure to meet their celebrity judge,’ ordered the loudspeaker.
‘Who’s that darling old boy? He looks very familiar,’ murmured Bonny as the ladies lined up.
‘He’s an actor,’ said Romy.
‘He’s off of the telly anyway,’ said Cindy.
‘I know who he is, he’s in Buffers,’ cried Romy, ‘that army quiz game where old generals and war heroes argue over campaigns.’
‘So he is. It’s Rupert Campbell-Black’s father, Eddie,’ said Corinna.
‘Ooh, I wonder if Rupert’s here?’ All the ladies looked round in excitement.
As they paraded before him in their finery, letcherous Eddie was like a pig in clover.
Shuffling down the line, he particularly admired Romy’s cleavage, Bonny’s legs, Olivia’s kitten face and the scarlet drooping lips of Corinna, whose make-up had just been touched up in the car park by Stefan the Pole.
Eddie then caught sight of Cindy in pink Versace with her boobs hanging out. Her pink feather fascinator tickled his nose, making him sneeze, as he leaned forward to have a better look. Awarding her first prize as Best Dressed Lady, he was rewarded with an explosion of excited squawks and omigods and kisses.
‘Fancy me being better dressed than famous older celebs like Corinna and Bonny Richards,’ screamed Cindy.
‘Bonny Richards?’ asked Eddie. ‘Is that Gordon’s girl?’
‘I gave Cindy that reconstruction,’ Lester Bolton told Shade complacently. ‘Each boob cost nine thousand.’
This event had been taking place in the winners enclosure while Furious, in an LB-initialled rug, and Tommy, in an LBinitialled sweatshirt, both sweating up worse than Lester in his tweed suit, were walking quietly round the parade ring next door.
Unfortunately, Cindy’s prolonged and hysterical victory screams coincided with a woman hanging over the rails and putting up her rose-patterned parasol in Furious’s face. Furious spooked, Tommy, caught off guard, let go of the lead rope. Furious took off, clearing the rail and, people swear to this day, the cowering spectators. By the time he was caught, glaring into a bungalow and terrorizing two pensioners, the race was over.