Blotto, Twinks and the Stars of the Silver Screen Read online

  He even wondered whether the benefit of having year-round cricket was sufficient compensation for the other things one had to put up with in Hollywood.

  He only really had one regret about their American visit. He still didn’t know when to say ‘got’ and when to say ‘gotten’. Except in Gott in Himmel!, of course.

  Twinks was just as happy as her brother about the prospect of going home. From the moment she had left the place, she hadn’t had a single backward thought about Hollywood or the collection of amorous swains she’d left there. Of course, she wasn’t coming back with a Texas oil millionaire – something that might take some explaining to the Mater – but updating the Tawcester Towers plumbing would just have to wait.

  She looked forward to being home. One of the first things she’d do would be to arrange a visit to Oxford to see Professor Erasmus Holofernes. After all the voidbrains she’d encountered in the movie world, it would be refreshing to engage with a proper intellect.

  The surface of Hollywood closed after the departure of Blotto and Twinks without a ripple. Within a week Heddan Schoulders had tales of even newer stars to report. Yesterday’s sensations were quickly forgotten.

  So too were the bruisings received by Hank Urchief and Toni Frangipani. Time, the sycophancy of agents and producers, and the availability of infinite numbers of nubile starlets soon massaged their egos back to their customary supersize.

  But as the prospect of talkies moved from rumour to reality, the chances of Toni Frangipani’s career having a future evaporated. And whether Hank Urchief’s beefcake charm would make the transition was also open to debate.

  Gottfried von Klappentrappen’s ability to adapt to the demands of making ‘talkies’ was another unknown quantity, but in the meantime he continued to strut and bully his way about the set of The Trojan Horse. And he kept thinking of new elements to mix into the salmagundi of his plot.

  For instance, he drafted Toni Frangipani into the cast to play Hannibal. And he would listen to no arguments to the effect that Hannibal and the Trojan War happened in different centuries. He just wanted to get some elephants into his movie.

  Paul Uckliss-Hack, the writer, and Professor Gervase Blunkett-Plunkett, the classical adviser, tore out all of their remaining hair.

  The Trojan Horse was now so far over budget that the accountants had stopped counting. It looked like Wilbur T. Cottonpick might achieve his aim of losing money on the movie. And as for his plan to lose money by introducing cricket to the USA, he finally gave the idea a firm ‘Nope.’

  On the domestic front, Gottfried von Klappentrappen divorced Zelda Finch. Cushioned by the large settlement she received, she decided to reinvent herself as an upmarket phobia therapist. There was always a demand for such services in Hollywood. Creating her own system of aversion therapy, she kept a tank of snakes in her consulting room. And nothing gave her greater pleasure than making clients with ophidiophobia handle them.

  Her ex-husband married Buza Cruz next, but that only lasted a couple of weeks. In the limited time he had when he wasn’t on the set of The Trojan Horse, Heddan Schoulders assured her readers he was looking for wife number eight.

  With the decease of all the Barolo Brothers, Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto found himself, for a while, the unrivalled king of crime in Hollywood. This made him relax in a way he never had before, and he found he had rather a taste for the quiet life. He married his long-term mistress Mimsy La Pim, who had given up acting, and together they took bridge lessons to fill the long hours of their comfortable retirement.

  Terminal Services, faced with exorbitant law suits from Hank Urchief, Toni Frangipani, Gottfried von Klappen-trappen and many other dissatisfied clients, went out of business. But there were still plenty of other places in Hollywood where hitmen could be found when required.

  The Lagonda arrived back at Tawcester Towers late one evening. Moonlit frost gleamed on every crenellation of the huge building. English stars sparkled in an English heaven.

  Blotto was back in a country where no cricket would be played until the following April, but he couldn’t have cared less. In the morning he would go to the stables and reacquaint himself with his beloved hunter Mephistopheles. Riding to hounds and shooting every animal that moved would keep him going until the next cricket season.

  In the morning he and his sister would also have to face the interrogation of the Mater in the Blue Morning Room, but that night, as they slipped into the familiar embrace of damp sheets and heard the reassuring clanking of the plumbing, both Blotto and Twinks were glad to be home.