Warhol's Prophecy

89

‘YOU DIDN’T HAVE to do this, Jim,’ said Hailey, smiling.

She looked across at James Marsh, who was sipping his Southern Comfort.

‘I know I didn’t have to,’ he told her. ‘I wanted to – just to say thanks and all that old crap.’

‘Thanks for what?’

‘Coming back to work for me. Organizing this anniversary gig and the party so efficiently.’

‘You’re paying me well to do it, Jim, remember?’

‘Christ, that’s a point,’ he chuckled. ‘Perhaps I should let you buy the lunch instead.’

He signalled to the waiter to bring him another drink. The restaurant of the Pavilion Hotel was fairly quiet. The main rush of diners had long since departed, back to their offices or wherever else they plied their various trades. Marsh had no such need to hurry.

The Pavilion was an old building – early 1920s he guessed – but it had undergone such major refitting and refurbishment during the past five years that it looked as if it belonged with the new structures that made up the rest of the small town that had sprung up around it. The only thing that hadn’t changed much was the restaurant itself. It was a massive conservatory-like building framed on three sides by huge glass panels that allowed diners to look out over an orchard and an ornate garden.

Sumptuously decorated with original furniture and carpets, it also boasted an enormous chandelier suspended from the centre of the glass roof. To Hailey, it looked as if thousands of crystalline tears had been fused together to create this magnificent adornment.

Marsh had hired the entire hotel for the night of the gig. Members of Waterhole would stay here, too. The party itself would be held in the room in which they now sat. Huge oak tables, each seating up to twenty, would be attended by waiters and waitresses bringing food prepared by three master chefs.

The list of guests had swelled from sixty to over one hundred. Record company people, local dignitaries, media, friends and family.

Family . . .

Marsh ran his finger slowly around the rim of his glass.

‘What’s the matter, Jim?’ Hailey wanted to know, noticing his pensive expression.

‘I was just thinking about my kids,’ he told her.

‘Aren’t any of them coming to the party?’

‘I doubt it,’ he said bitterly, draining what was left in his glass. ‘They don’t approve of their dad’s plans.’

‘Are you still going to announce your wedding at the party?’

He nodded. ‘Do you think there’ll be lots of disapproving looks? Much silent tutting amongst the morally righteous?’

‘Who cares if there is? Who you marry is your business,’ said Hailey defensively.

‘Even if that someone is half my age?’

‘It’s your life, Jim.’

‘One of my sons called Paula a gold-digger. I don’t think he likes the idea of having a stepmother who’s only a year older than himself.’

‘It doesn’t matter what they think, as long as you’re happy. You love Paula and she loves you. She wouldn’t be marrying you otherwise.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. A personal fortune of thirty million does make a man that little bit more attractive, doesn’t it?’ He smiled.

Hailey also managed to grin.

‘Anyway, what about your family?’ Marsh asked. ‘How’s Rob?’

‘He’s due home tomorrow. I’m picking him up from the hospital.’

‘And the police still haven’t got any idea who attacked him?’

Hailey shook her head.

‘I wish I had,’ she said quietly. ‘I’d kill them.’

He regarded her silently across the table. Saw the anger in her expression.

‘He’ll be well enough to come to the gig and the party afterwards, won’t he?’ Marsh asked.

Hailey nodded. ‘I think Becky would drag him along, even if I didn’t,’ she said, grinning. ‘She can’t wait to see Waterhole in the flesh.’

‘Even though they are a bunch of arseholes. I was right, wasn’t I? People like Lennon, Hendrix and Janis Joplin would be spinning in their graves if they could see those dickheads now. Tell me I’m wrong.’

‘I can’t,’ she admitted.

‘At the risk of sounding like an old fart,’ Marsh said, ‘this world really has turned to shit, hasn’t it? It makes you long for the good old days.’ He chuckled. ‘Do you know what we had in the good old days? Malnutrition, rickets, TB and poverty.’

They both laughed.

‘You’ve come a long way, Jim,’ Hailey said. ‘We all have.’

‘Let’s drink to that,’ he echoed.

They both raised their glasses.

‘To rickets,’ he said.

Again they laughed.