They cleared the trees and approached the water’s edge. Poppy, blinking rain out of her eyes, wondered why a disheveled-looking pensioner would want to wade around in the muddy shallows on such a cold day.
Then she spotted the bottle—whisky-shaped—in the pensioner’s hand. Poppy turned and waited for Caspar to catch up.
‘He mutht be plathtered. Should we try and do thomething?’
‘What did that dentist take out, your eyes as well?’ said Caspar. ‘It’s not a he, it’s a she.’
Poppy squinted across at the pensioner. In that battered trilby and long flapping raincoat it was hard to tell.
The next moment the pensioner was wading round in a semi-circle, shaking her whisky bottle at them.
‘Bugger off!’ The throaty, clearly articulated voice that floated across the water towards them was deep-pitched but definitely female. ‘Sod off, the pair of you. Nosy bastards, come to gawk. What am I, some kind of peepshow? The latest tourist attraction?’ She glared at Caspar and Poppy in disdain, then bellowed, ‘By God, it comes to something when a soul in torment can’t even bloody kill herself in peace.’
The voice wasn’t only female, it was instantly recognizable.
‘Crikey.’ Poppy gazed transfixed. ‘It’th Eleanor Brent.’
‘Whatever you do,’ said Caspar, ‘don’t ask for her autograph.’
Eleanor Brent was one of the darlings of British theatre. She was practically a national treasure. Never what you could call a stunner, she had made up in talent and character for what she might have lacked in the looks department.
Eleanor’s first fifty years had been spent ricocheting from one hopeless marriage to the next. She endeared herself to her public by proving you could be endlessly talented and still spectacularly unlucky in love. She was famous for smiling through her tears and insisting the show must go on.
Now she was in her mid-seventies, still much-loved, still working in the theatre, but no longer a slave to men.
‘I’ve grown up,’ she was fond of informing interviewers when they broached the subject. ‘Put all that lovey-dovey stuff behind me, thank God. My days of romance are over. Such a relief.’
In which case, thought Poppy, what was Eleanor Brent doing, drunk as a skunk in the Serpentine, hurling insults at strangers, and threatening to do herself in?
‘I mean it.’ The actress stumbled and waved her bottle wildly over her head to balance herself. Her trilby slipped over one eye. ‘Get out of here,’ she roared, sounding like Margaret Thatcher in need of a cough drop. ‘Go on, bloody clear orf.’
To make sure they got the message, she stuck two fingers up at them.
‘No,’ said Caspar.
The deadly glare narrowed.
‘Look,’ Poppy began to say nervously, ‘how can we leave you here? You thouldn’t be—’
‘Jesus Christ, what are you, a pair of sodding Samaritans? Just turn round and start walking, can’t you? I don’t want to be lectured to about the joys of living by a couple of do-gooders. Apart from anything else, this water is fucking freezing—’
As she bawled out these lines, Eleanor Brent began wading clumsily backwards. Within seconds she was up to her waist. The rain, pelting down even harder now, pitted the surface of the water like machine-gun fire.
The next moment she lost her balance and toppled over, losing her trilby in the process.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ sighed Caspar, kicking off his shoes. He peeled off his jacket and handed it to Poppy.
‘Quick,’ Poppy squealed, shoving him forwards and promptly dropping his jacket in a mud slick. ‘She’th going to drown!’
The torrential rain had emptied the park as efficiently as bleach kills germs. There wasn’t another soul in sight.
‘Damn.’ Caspar spoke through gritted teeth. ‘She was right about something. It is bloody freezing.’
The trilby was sailing out into the center of the lake. Eleanor Brent appeared to have sunk. Not without trace though; a stream of bubbles broke the water’s surface ahead of Caspar who was now struggling to keep his own balance.
The bottom of the lake was disgustingly slimy. The thought of what he could be treading in made Caspar wish he hadn’t kicked off his shoes. Taking a deep breath he launched himself into a crawl in the direction of Eleanor’s bubbles.
This was nothing like Baywatch. It didn’t bear much relation, either, to the lifesaving techniques he had practiced years ago at school, when all you’d had to save was a plastic dummy in a pair of striped pajamas. Plastic dummies cooperated beautifully. They rolled over onto their backs, let you put one hand under their chins, and allowed you to guide them effortlessly back to the side of the pool.
They definitely didn’t kick, punch, bite, and swear at the top of their voice. Nor did they bash you on the head with a bottle of Scotch.
‘Drop it,’ Caspar spluttered as Eleanor Brent simultaneously kicked him in the kidneys and lashed out at his face. God, for an old dear she had a grip like superglue. ‘Drop that bottle and stop fighting—’
‘Bog off,’ howled Eleanor, her teeth bared with rage. ‘Think I want to be rescued by some bloody blond nancy boy who dyes his hair?’
‘My hair-is-not-dyed.’
She let out a turkey screech as he managed to pry the bottle from her gnarled fingers. Her nails clawed at his neck, drawing blood. Caspar began to wonder if he was going to have to knock her out cold; at this rate, he didn’t stand a hope in hell of getting her onto dry land.
The next moment, eel-like, Eleanor slithered from his grasp. She sank again. Caspar dived and dragged her back to the surface. This time she didn’t fight back. All her strength had gone, he realized. She had also swallowed a couple of lungfuls of lake.
By the time Caspar managed to tow Eleanor Brent to safety, two cars had stopped. Poppy, who had flagged them down and dialed 999 on the second driver’s mobile phone, waded in up to her knees to help Caspar haul the semi-conscious Eleanor out of the water and up onto the grass.
Eleanor promptly threw up. When she had finished, she rolled over and aimed a wild punch at Caspar’s knees.
‘Raving bloody poofter. My second husband was one of ’em. And what the buggering hell have you done with my Scotch?’
‘I’m not a poofter.’ Caspar rubbed his eyes wearily, then blinked as a flashbulb went off six feet to his left. The driver of the first car was crouching on a muddy patch of grass to get the best camera angle.
‘What the bloody hell was that in aid of?’ Caspar demanded. Listen to me, he thought. Eleanor Brent’s profanity must be catching.
‘Come on,’ reasoned the man, ‘I’ve got a mate who works in a picture agency. You’re Caspar French, aren’t you? And that’s Eleanor Brent.’ As he spoke, he took another shot. ‘I can sell these. You’ll be a hero.’
‘I can hear the ambulanthe,’ said Poppy, whose mouth was hurting horribly. She took off her shoes and emptied them of water.
‘Come here.’ Caspar patted the ground next to him, thinking that this could give Jake the break he’d been looking for. ‘Come and sit down next to me.’