Octavia

by Jilly Cooper

  Cy Markovitz, having finished with the black girl, wandered over and said he was almost ready. He was a tall, exhausted and melancholy man in his late forties, wearing army trousers, sneakers, and a khaki shirt drenched with sweat.

  ‘Come and meet Octavia,’ said Andreas, re-filling my glass. ‘She’s a bit nervous, first time she’s done anything like this, so treat her with care. Lovely isn’t she?’ he added, smoothing my hair back from my forehead.

  Cy Markovitz nodded — he was, after all, being paid vast sums by Andreas — and said the camera would go up in smoke when it saw me.

  ‘You needn’t worry about the pix,’ he went on. ‘We’ll shoot through a soft-focus lens with the emphasis on the face and the direct gaze, very subdued and elegant.’

  Oh God, what would Gareth say if he ever saw the results. I imagined him suddenly stumbling across them as he flicked through magazines on some foreign news-stand, his face hardening with disapproval, then shrugging his shoulders because he’d always known I was a bad lot. Was it really worth going through with it to help Xander? Was blood really thicker than water?

  ‘Ready when you are darlings,’ said Gabriel, popping his golden head round the curtain.

  Andreas gave me a big smile. ‘Come on baby, you’ll enjoy it once we get started.’

  I sat on the silver satin sheets, gazing in misery on the forest of potted plants. The studio seemed to be very full of people, all watching me with bored appraising eyes. I huddled even deeper into my dressing gown.

  Cy Markovitz came over to me.

  ‘You’re not going to need that,’ he said gently.

  As I took it off, even Markovitz caught his breath. Andreas’ thug friends were trying to preserve their poker faces, but their eyes were falling out.

  ‘I told you she was the nearest thing to a Vargas girl you were ever likely to see,’ said Andreas smugly.

  Cy was gazing into the viewfinder. His assistant took some Polaroid pictures, peeling them off like a wet bikini. Andreas and Cy pored over them.

  ‘We’ll need the cold blower to stiffen her nipples,’ said Cy.

  Andreas was determined to get his 112 lbs of flesh. Two agonizing hours later, I had been photographed in every conceivable position and garment, including a white fox fur with a string of pearls hanging over one breast, a soaking wet cheesecloth shirt, black stockings and a suspender belt, and nothing but an ostrich feather.

  Gabriel, who was fast losing his cool, had been sent out to hire a Persian cat for me to cuddle, but after 30 seconds of popping flash bulbs the poor creature, having lacerated my stomach with its claws, wriggled out of my clutches and took refuge in the rafters.

  Now I was stretched out on the satin sheets, wearing a sort of rucked up camisole top. Cy Markovitz clicked away, keeping up a running commentary.

  ‘Lovely, darling, just pull it down over your right shoulder, look straight into the camera. A bit more wind machine, Gabriel, please. Come on Octavia, baby, relax, and let me have it, shut your eyes, lick your lips and caress yourself.’

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I won’t do that.’

  Markovitz sighed, extracted the roll of film from the camera, licked the flap, sealed it up and, taking another roll from the assistant, replaced it.

  ‘Turn over,’ he said. ‘Bury your face in the sheets, stick your ass in the air, and freeze in that position.’

  ‘I can’t freeze when I’m absolutely baking,’ I snapped.

  ‘Hold it,’ said Markovitz, ‘hold it. That’s fan-bloody-tastic. Come over and have a look, Andreas.’

  Andreas joined him. They conferred in low voices, then Andreas came and sat down on the bed beside me, filling up my glass.

  ‘You’re too uptight baby,’ he said. ‘You’re not coming across.’

  ‘How can I when you’re all here gawping at me?’

  It was like the times when I was a child and my mother insisted on being present when the doctor examined me.

  ‘You’ll have to try.’ And once again I realized how much he was enjoying my utter humiliation, paying me back for all the times I’d put him down in the past. I lay back on the bed.

  ‘Open your legs a bit further, open wide, that’s lovely,’ said Cy, clicking away. Any moment he’d ask me to say ‘ah’. After this was all over, I supposed I could go out and throw myself over Westminster Bridge.

  Gabriel was still whisking about, adjusting plants, his bronzed, hairless pectorals gleaming in the lights.

  ‘Why don’t we dress her up as a nun and let Angelica seduce her?’ he said. ‘Then it wouldn’t matter her looking so uptight.’

  ‘That’s an interesting thought,’ said Andreas.

  There was a knock on the door. One of the assistants unlocked it, and let in a girl in a red dress with long black hair, and a pale, witchy, heavily made-up face. She looked furious and vaguely familiar. Perhaps miraculously she was going to take over from me.

  ‘Hi, Angelica,’ said Markovitz. ‘Go and get your clothes off. We’ll take a break for ten minutes.’

  ‘She was on the gatefold of Penetration this month,’ said one of Gabriel’s minions. ‘The blurb said Daddy was a regular soldier and that Angelica was reading philosophy at university, and spent the vacation pottering round ruins.’

  ‘You could hardly call Andreas a ruin,’ said Gabriel.

  Andreas opened another bottle of champagne.

  ‘I’ve booked a table at Skindles’ tonight,’ he said, caressing my shoulder with a moist hand. ‘I thought in this heat it’d be nice to get out of London.’

  He took a powder puff from one of Cy’s assistants, and carefully took the shine off my nose. Tears of utter despair stung my eyelids.

  ‘If you could find a horse,’ said the other of Gabriel’s minions, ‘she’d make a stunning Godiva.’

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed Gabriel. ‘There’s a riding school round the corner. I’ve had enough hassle getting that bloody cat.’

  A few minutes later Angelica emerged from behind the curtain, wearing only a red feather boa and a corn plaster. She walked sulkily up to the bed, looking at Andreas with the mixture of terror and loathing such as a lion might regard a sadistic ringmaster.

  ‘You’ve already met Angelica Burton-Brown, haven’t you Octavia?’ said Andreas. He seemed to be laughing at some private joke.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I began, then realized that she was one of the tarts Andreas had brought down to Grayston. She was now glaring in my direction. Clytemnestra could hardly have looked more blackly on Agamemnon.

  ‘Come and lie down, Angelica,’ said Andreas, patting the bed.

  She stretched out beside me, her black-lined eyes not quite closed. Underneath each false eyelash was a millimetre of dark venomous light raying straight in my direction. Trust Andreas to set up a scene that tortured both past and intended mistress.

  ‘How’s that?’ he said to Cy. ‘They make a good contrast, don’t they? Profane and not-so-Sacred Love.’

  I got to my feet and reached under the bed for the dressing gown. ‘You’ve finished with me then?’

  Andreas put a heavy hand on my shoulder, pressing me down again.

  ‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘we’re only just beginning. Put the Nun’s headdress on Angelica,’ he said to Gabriel.

  She looked so utterly ridiculous — talk about sour Angelica — that I was hard put not to giggle with hysterical laughter. But not for long; the next moment Andreas had hung a cross round my neck.

  ‘Kneel beside her, Angelica,’ he went on. ‘That’s right, as close as you can.’

  I felt as though great toads were crawling all over me. I gazed down at the cross hanging between my breasts. Perhaps if I held it up to Andreas, he would suddenly age hundreds of years and shrivel into dust like Count Dracula.

  ‘Now put your hand on Octavia’s shoulder,’ he said. I jumped away as I felt her fingers.

  ‘No!’ I screamed. ‘No! I won’t do it, I won’t!’

  ‘Cut it out,’ sai
d Andreas. ‘Do you want two grand or not?’

  I looked at him mutinously; then I remembered Xander and nodded.

  Angelica looked about as cheerful as a cat with toothache. She’d obviously never had bread like that from him.

  Andreas ruffled the sheets round us, and gazed into the viewfinder.

  ‘Very nice,’ he said softly. ‘A bit more amiable, both of you.’ Cy took over again.

  ‘Put your hand on Octavia’s throat, Angelica,’ he said.

  I steeled myself, feeling the tense hatred in her fingers. The sweat was glistening on her black moustache.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Cy. ‘Now slide your hand down a bit Angelica, and down a bit further.’

  I couldn’t bear it, even for Xander, I couldn’t take any more. I shot a despairing supplicating glance at Andreas and was appalled by the expression of suppressed excitement on his face. I felt the tears coursing down my cheeks.

  Then suddenly there was a tremendous crash outside. Everyone jumped, as someone started pummelling on the door.

  ‘It’s the fuzz,’ squeaked Gabriel in excitement, patting his curls.

  ‘You can’t go in there,’ screamed a female voice. ‘The studio’s booked.’

  ‘Oh yes I bloody can,’ shouted a voice.

  There was another tremendous crash, the door seemed to tremble, then suddenly caved in. I gave a gasp, half of relief and half of horror, for in the doorway, fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, stood Gareth. Slowly he looked round the room, taking in first Cy, then Andreas and his hood cronies, then finally me on the bed with Angelica. With a whimper I pulled one of the satin sheets round me.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’ he howled, walking across the studio towards me. ‘You whore, you bloody cheap whore! I might have known you’d end up like this. Get your clothes on.’

  Andreas moved towards him.

  ‘Take it easy, big boy,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t get so excited.’

  Gareth turned on him.

  ‘You lousy creep,’ he hissed. ‘I know how long you’ve been scheming to get your dirty hands on her. I’ll get you for this. Go on,’ he added, out of the corner of his mouth, to me. ‘For Christ’s sake, get dressed.’

  I stood up, still too frightened to move.

  ‘How on earth did you know she was here?’ asked Gabriel, looking at him with admiration.

  ‘Andreas shouldn’t go round boasting in restaurants,’ said Gareth. ‘These things get overheard.’

  ‘Look, wise guy.’ Andreas was talking slowly and patiently now, as though he was dictating to an inexperienced secretary. ‘You’re gatecrashing a very important party. Cy’s booked for the day, and so’s Octavia, and neither of them for peanuts. She needs the money, don’t you Octavia?’

  Gareth glanced in my direction. I nodded miserably.

  ‘So you can’t come barging in here making a nuisance of yourself,’ said Andreas.

  ‘Oh, can’t I?’ said Gareth with ominous quiet.

  There was a long pause; then, suddenly, he went berserk. Turning, he kicked Cy’s camera across the room, then he smashed his fist into Cy’s face, sending him flying after the camera. The next moment he’d laid out Cy’s assistant with a punishing upper cut. Then Vic the hood picked up a rubber plant and hurled it at Gareth, who ducked just in time and, gathering up another plant, hurled it back.

  Screaming like a stuck pig, still in the Nun’s headdress, Angelica dived under the bed, followed immediately by the two minions and Gabriel.

  ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Gabriel as two more plants sailed through the air. ‘Burnham Wood came to Dunsinane, now it’s going back again.’

  Ducking to avoid more flying vegetation, I shook off the silk sheets, ran across the room, dived behind the curtain and started to pull on my clothes. By the sound of it Gareth was still laying about him like a maddened bull. As I looked out he was having a punch-up with Mannie who wrong-footed him and sent him crashing to the ground. The next moment Gareth had got to his feet and thrown Mannie into the middle of the remaining potted plants.

  ‘Oh my poor jardinière,’ wailed Gabriel’s voice from under the bed. ‘What will the plant shop say?’

  As I crept out from behind the curtain, a silver teapot and two glass paperweights flew across the room, none of them fortunately hitting their target.

  Gareth paused; he was breathing heavily. Cy was still nursing his jaw in the corner. Mannie was peering out of the plants like a spy in L’Attaque. Vic was shaking his head and picking himself up. Cy’s assistant got to his feet. As he started edging nervously towards the door, Gareth grabbed him by the collar.

  ‘No you don’t,’ he said. ‘Where are those rolls of film? Come on or I’ll beat you to a pulp.’ His fingers closed round the boy’s neck.

  ‘Over there on the trolley,’ choked the boy in terror.

  Gareth pocketed the rolls. As I sidled round the wall towards him, he glanced in my direction and jerked his head towards the door. He was just backing towards it himself when Vic moved in, catching him off guard with a blow to the right eye. Gareth slugged him back, sending him hurtling across the room, then, trying to right himself, tripped over one of the light wires and cannoned heavily into a pile of tripods. It was getting more like Tom and Jerry every minute.

  Next minute, Andreas, who’d been watching the whole proceedings without lifting a finger, picked up the champagne bottle and, cracking it on the underneath of the bed, moved with incredible speed across the room towards Gareth. Cornered, Gareth scrambled out of the tripods, shaking his head. His right eye was beginning to close up. His forehead, just above his eyebrow, was bleeding where Vic’s gold ring had gashed it.

  He backed away from Andreas until he reached the wall.

  ‘Now then big boy,’ murmured Andreas, his voice almost a caress. ‘I’ll teach you to get tough with me.’ He brandished the jagged edge of the bottle in Gareth’s face. ‘Give me back that film.’

  Gareth stared at him, not a muscle moving in his face.

  ‘You lousy cheap punk,’ he said.

  Then I froze with horror as I saw that Mannie had extracted himself from the potted plants and, armed with a flick knife, was moving relentlessly in from the right. Without thinking, I picked up the Christopher Wray lamp and hurled it at him, slap on target. Just for a second Andreas’ concentration flickered, giving Gareth the chance to leap on him, knocking him to the floor. Over and over they rolled like Tommy Brook and Mr Tod, yelling abuse at each other. Then finally Gareth was on top smashing his fists into Andreas’ head. For a minute I thought he was going to kill him; then he got up, picked Andreas up and threw him through the Habitat wallpaper like a clown through a hoop.

  There was another long pause. Gareth looked slowly round the room. Everyone flattened themselves against the wall or the floor. Then suddenly there was the sound of clapping, and Angelica emerged from under the bed, her Nun’s headdress askew.

  ‘I’ve been waiting three years for someone to do that,’ she said.

  Blood was pouring from Gareth’s arm. He must have jagged it on Andreas’ bottle.

  ‘You’ll bleed to death,’ I moaned, gathering up a peach silk petticoat that was lying on the floor.

  ‘Well, bags I give him the kiss of life,’ said a little voice from under the bed. Gareth grabbed my wrist. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  I hoped Gareth had worked off his rage breaking up Cy’s studio, but as we stormed up Parkside towards London, with Wimbledon Common on our right, the full storm of his fury broke over me.

  ‘I tried to help you,’ he yelled. ‘We all did. Jakey’s nursed you like a baby through the last eight weeks, and then you have to pick this afternoon to blow the whole thing — just when Jakey needed you. I don’t understand you, Octavia. Have you got some sort of death wish? Don’t you care about anyone?’

  He overtook another car; you could have got fag paper between them. Thank God we were going against the traffic. Hom
e-going commuters crawling in the other direction stared at us in amazement. Some of them were stopping to put their hoods up. The stifling heat hadn’t let up, but an ominous, bilberry dark sky had replaced the serene unclouded blue of the morning.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ said Gareth, overtaking yet again. ‘Go on, I want to know.’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Sure you can’t. Well I’ll tell you; you’re so bloody idle you can’t resist making a quick buck from Andreas. But my God, you’d have paid for it. He’d have broken you in a couple of months.’

  We were passing Wimbledon Windmill now. I gazed stonily at the dried-up pond and the great sweeps of platinum-bleached grass, blackened everywhere by fires.

  Gareth warmed to his subject:

  ‘I guess you’re turned on at the thought of all those men on news-stands slobbering over your photograph, misting up windows in Soho to get a second glance at your tits, not to mention the ones in bedsitters wearing raincoats. .’

  ‘They’d hardly keep their macs on in the bedroom,’ I protested.

  ‘Don’t be flippant,’ he howled.

  We had reached the roundabout at Tibbet’s Corner now, but he was so incensed he kept missing the turning off to Putney and had to go round three times, which didn’t improve his temper.

  ‘Don’t you give a fuck about your reputation?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I snapped. ‘I needed the bread in a hurry, that was all. But you’re so well-heeled you wouldn’t understand things like that.’

  Gareth turned on me, enraged.

  ‘Haven’t you any idea how poor we were when I was a child?’

  ‘I don’t want to hear,’ I said, putting my hands over my ears. ‘I’ve read D. H. Lawrence, I know quite enough already about poverty at the pithead. I’m just fed up with you going round censoring my behaviour. Who the hell do you think you are, Mary Whitehouse, you great Welsh prude?’

  ‘You’ve called me that already,’ he said.

  ‘What!’ I shouted, my hands still over my ears.

  ‘Don’t bug me,’ he shouted back and, seizing my arm, yanked my hand away from my ear.