Ruby Jackson - A Christmas Gift

‘Wherever did you find this perfect little peach, Staines?’

Sally heard the question and at the same time felt an arm going around her waist. ‘Stop that,’ she began, but she felt herself being pulled even closer to a large man in a scarlet evening jacket.

‘What a beauty,’ the voice continued as the man’s other hand began to rove over Sally’s back and down her hips. ‘Yum, yum, you can’t keep her to yourself.’

‘Let go of me,’ Sally, heedless of the fact that she was surrounded by many of the nation’s theatrical stars, hissed out the words, accompanying them with a sharp kick.

The hands dropped immediately but a well-known and heretofore much-admired face pressed itself closer to Sally’s. ‘Oh, I do like a little ingénue with a sparkle.’ One hand grasped Sally’s arm. ‘Go halves, Elliott darling, and I might just be able to …’

Sally looked up into the face of Conrad Blessington and, although she was frightened, angry and disappointed, she noted that the once so-handsome face had developed heavy jowls. There were dark shadows, not of illness, she thought, but of dissipation. Had the actor she had so admired always been as vulgar as the man holding her now?

Sally wrenched herself free and praying, first, that no one had paid any attention, and secondly, that she would not burst into tears, pushed her way past the two men and headed for the door. She gave thought to nothing but the need to get as far away from men like Elliott Staines and his friend as possible.

‘Why, there you are,’ said a voice. ‘I waited an age and had quite given up hope of seeing you this evening.’

A young man – and Sally was not so upset that she did not see that he was extremely handsome – was standing beside her and smiling at her as if they were old friends.

‘Bit of a crush, isn’t it, but super evening? Didn’t you think the last number was absolutely divine?’

Whoever he was, he gave her no chance to reply, not that she was capable of saying anything, but bundled her through the crowd – which parted for him – and out of the star’s dressing room.

‘Sebastian Brady,’ he introduced himself. ‘I take it that I’m correct and you didn’t want to stay with those two old lechers?’

Sally looked up at him, into the perfect face that she and her friends had fallen in love with when he had made his film debut as a prefect in the film Goodbye, Mr Chips .

Sebastian Brady. What must he think of her? Wildly Sally groped for a handkerchief. The young actor pressed his own into her hand.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Dartford.’

‘Bloody hell. Oh, I do apologise. Has to be better than Portsmouth. Is there a late train?’

Sally blew her nose again. ‘I have no idea. Elliott drove us.’

‘So, no train ticket either?’

Tears started in Sally’s eyes. How foolish she felt.

‘You’ll have to trust me then. Straight off, I think you’re a lovely girl but my grandmother brought me up, she trusts, to be a gentleman. Come along. I’ve never been to Dartford. It’ll be good for me.’

‘You do know where it is?’

‘Not the slightest idea.’ He laughed at her worried expression. ‘But I do have a fabulous invention, Miss Expressive Face. It’s called a road map.’

‘Very funny.’

They laughed together. He drove her home and as he negotiated the route he chatted of this, that and everything in between. It was as if they had known each other for ever.

She was embarrassed to see the slightest chink of light through the blackout curtains in her parents’ bedroom.

‘Parents still awake, Sally? Don’t be embarrassed. Be grateful. If I still lived at home, Grandmamma would be sitting up in the library waiting.’

She would have liked to ask about his parents but was still too aware that he was an actual film star. Instead she thanked him sincerely for his kindness. Then they said goodbye. He watched her until she had disappeared into the house. Sally waved and assumed that she would never see him again.

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