Chapter 8 The Lion and the Unicorn
The Lion and the Unicorn
Luigi’s rough Chianti took its toll on Flynn.
No after-effects for Maud Ogilvie, it seemed.
“This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it,” she greeted him brightly when he entered the office.
“Not suffering too much from our revels last night, I hope?” Once he was seated at his desk, she silently placed a glass of water and two aspirin next to him.
“On expenses,” she murmured. He thought he heard her laugh.
“Late again, Mr. Flynn?” Denholm said, appearing on his silent, feline feet.
“Sorry, Mr. Denholm.”
“Mr. Dangerfield is particularly vexed about our timekeeping. Perhaps we should start punching in on a time clock. What do you think, Miss Ogilvie?”
“I think, Mr. Denholm, that everyone would still be late, but the time clock would provide incontrovertible evidence of it.”
Denholm surrendered. He was easily defeated.
Flynn commenced a marathon round of telephone calls with the offices of the monthly magazines and the women’s pages of the national newspapers to promote the Festival Cake.
He had expected resistance, but they all seemed surprisingly keen to embrace the idea.
Maud Ogilvie Roneo’d multiple copies of the recipe for him.
“Although very willing,” she said, “I have to say in my defence that I am not a secretary.”
“What are you, then?” the Boy asked (the only one of them bold enough).
In answer, she laughed and tweaked his ear fondly (“Ow!”).
He was duly dispatched to distribute copies of the recipe around Fleet Street and amazed them by returning in no time at all with his mission accomplished.
“Our own little Hermes,” Maud Ogilvie said.
“You must have wings on the heels of your shoes, Terence.”
“No, I borrowed a bike,” the Boy said. Neither Flynn nor Maud Ogilvie chose to question the meaning of “borrowed.”
“They’re mad for your Mitzi Blinkhorn, by the way,” the Boy said to Flynn. “They all want to talk to her. Photos and stuff.”
Even before the Boy’s speedy return, Flynn had begun to receive requests: a picture shoot with the Mail, an interview with the Herald, another with the Standard, to be syndicated in the provincial press.
“I suppose she is flamboyant,” Flynn said. “She makes for good copy. I can imagine the papers could fill quite a few pages with her.”
“Flamboyant,” the Boy murmured, savouring the word.
“Like a flamingo or an ostrich,” Flynn said.
“A what or a who?”
“A pound on a taxi for the Blinkhorns, Mr. Flynn?” Maud Ogilvie queried. “Where did it go? Timbuktu?”
“Not quite. The Ritz.”
“But you have a receipt?”
“No, sorry.”
“Then I’m afraid my hands are tied.”
“By the way, Mr. Flynn,” Denholm said, “it seems you’re a big hit with Mitzi.”
“Mitzi’s spoken to you about me?”
“No, to Dangerfield. You’ve been asked to dinner tomorrow night.”
“By Dangerfield?”
“Goodness, no. One must be of the bon ton to breach the hallowed walls of Grosvenor Square. No, Mitzi has commanded your presence in Belgravia.”
“Must I?”
“Three-line whip, I’m afraid. Dangerfield’s keen you go.”
Badger strolled in and said, “Ready, Flynn? We can’t keep the Nell Gwyns waiting. They’ll be getting restless. You haven’t forgotten about them, have you?”
“Indulge me for a moment, Mr. Badgley,” Maud Ogilvie said. She stood up from her desk as if she were about to make an announcement. “While we’re all here,” she said, “I’d like to do something, if you’re all agreeable, that is.”
“My curiosity is aroused,” Denholm said.
From her bottomless bag Maud Ogilvie produced a Kodak camera. “My little hobby,” she said. “Please don’t get your hopes up. I am a strictly amateur portraitist, but I thought it might be rather nice if we had a photograph of us all together. A record for posterity, as it were.”
There was a good deal of discussion as to who should take the photograph. “I was intending to do it myself,” Maud Ogilvie said, but this idea was rejected. They had all warmed to her since her first appearance and she had now been absorbed into the “gang,” as Denholm would have them.
Denholm suggested that the Boy should be behind the camera, but Evans defended his right to be in the photograph.
“He’s one of us, after all.” (The Boy blushed with pleasure.) Evans, in his turn, suggested Denholm should be the photographer.
“But I’m one of you, too,” he protested. “Aren’t I?” he added, rather feebly.
Flynn, who had no care for posterity, volunteered, but was knocked down, and the problem was only resolved when a man from the Seaside Pavilion came to ask Flynn if the Stock List had any shrimping nets and was commandeered into taking the photograph.
“And of course,” Maud Ogilvie said, “as soon as the roll is finished, I shall take it to the chemist to have it developed and you shall all have a copy.”
Maud Ogilvie arranged them—she and the Boy and Flynn on chairs at the front, with Denholm, Badger and Evans standing behind them. “Big smiles now,” the man from Seaside said (they never knew his name). “Say cheese.”
“Better get a move on, Flynn,” Badger said, when the man from Seaside had left. “We don’t want to keep the Nell Gwyns waiting.”
A rehearsal space had been booked in the Savoy Theatre next door and the Nell Gwyns were queueing noisily in the corridor outside the room.
(“Like geese,” Badger said.) They proceeded to enter one by one to deliver their lines while pretending to be carrying a basket of oranges.
The “script” consisted of them cooing, “Come buy my wares, kind people. Who’ll buy my wares?
” in the manner of street hawkers of old.
“Dangerfield’s idea,” Badger said. Once the Festival started, the Nell Gwyns were to wander around the Fairway selling their (real) oranges to the crowds. “Sixpence each,” Badger said.
The Nell Gwyns spoke in the strangulated tones of the upper classes, and Badger said, “Sorry, Flynn, I’m afraid they’re mostly debutantes.
They were all I could find at short notice.
They make up for it by being keen, though.
” They were also noteworthy for their embonpoints, because one of Dangerfield’s stipulations was that the girls should be “well endowed,” as their costumes relied on very low-cut, off-the-shoulder bodices.
“No visible means of support,” Badger said.
“Like the economy. I believe that’s one of Dangerfield’s bons mots. ”
“I think that was said about the Skylon, not Nell Gwyn,” said Flynn. “I would have thought Dangerfield would have chosen a more reputable character from history.”
“Whore she may have been,” Badger said, “but she had two sons by the king, and apparently there’s a rumour that Dangerfield’s descended from one of them. I suppose he has a personal interest in her.”
“You don’t like him, do you, Badger? Is it something that happened in the war? Did you work with him?”
“Couldn’t possibly say, old chap. By the way, I’ve just been co-opted on to a new sub-committee. Stunts.” It was a clumsy deflection, but Flynn let it pass.
“What are ‘Stunts’?”
“Evening activities. Thinking up fun things for the paying public. You know—river spectacles, hot-air-balloon ascents, a tightrope walker crossing the Thames, fireworks, drum majorettes, that bikini contest I told you about—oh, here’s the lovely Lydia.”
A candidate more keenly Stanislavskian than the others entered.
She had brought her own orange, which she offered in a very alluring manner to Badger, extemporizing about her lovely juicy fruit (“Shall I peel it for you?”), making Badger squirm.
She yawned—rather theatrically, in Flynn’s opinion—and said, “It’s awfully early in the day for this, Badge,” so he presumed Badger was well acquainted with her.
“Lydia Fairchild,” he said after she had gone, leaving her orange as a parting gift.
“The Fairchilds were our neighbours in Norfolk when I was growing up. I went to school with her brother,” he added, slowly juggling the orange from hand to hand.
“He went down on HMS Hermes in the Bay of Bengal. Edmund. Good chap.”
In the end, there wasn’t much to choose between the Nell Gwyns and, after a brief consultation, they culled ten more or less at random—although not entirely random perhaps, as Lydia was one of the chosen ones.
Badger’s feelings counted for something.
He bowled the orange to the crestfallen Boy as a consolation prize when he stuck his head round the door and realized the Nell Gwyns had gone. “I missed them? All of them?”
“ ’Fraid so. Did you want something?”
“Message from Mr. Denholm,” the Boy said. “Will one of you pick up a dove for him? They’re being delivered to the Lion and Unicorn this morning.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Post Room’s short-handed,” the Boy said, “and the doves have to be counted in.” Counting was not the Boy’s forte. Evans had tried to teach him basic arithmetic but had given up in despair. (“And the thing is, he’s an intelligent little sod.”)
“I’ll go,” Flynn volunteered.
“I hear you went to Luigi’s with Miss Ogilvie,” Badger said when the Boy had gone.
“Smashing place, isn’t it? The minestrone’s excellent.
Anyway, I’ll leave you to your doves. I’m joining a small delegation sent to greet the Lord Privy Seal in Seaside.
Pa’s a friend of his. He’s here to vet the What the Butler Saw machine, make sure it’s not too racy, you know. ”
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