by Jilly Cooper
Matt pulled back the curtain and gave a low whistle.
‘That’s not bad for a start,’ he said.
‘But I’m practically falling out of it,’ she said.
‘Disgusting.’ He ran a leisurely hand over her midriff. ‘You’ll have to put in some overtime here. Try these on.’
Everything he handed her – dresses, trousers, shirts, beach shifts – was in pale greens, blues and pinks, calculated to take the last tinge of red out of her suntan.
The record player was pounding out old pop tunes.
‘You’re just too good to be true,
Can’t take my eyes off you . . .’ sang Andy Williams.
‘Took the words out of my mouth,’ said Matt. Still the same teasing note in his voice. But in his eyes, once again, she read approval and something else which made her heart beat faster.
As she struggled into an apple green dress covered in white daisies, wondering how he should so instinctively know what suited her, she suddenly heard a commotion outside.
‘Matthieu, mon vieux!’
‘Antoine, mon brave!’ followed by a torrent of excited French.
Imogen put her head round the curtain to find Matt talking nineteen to the dozen to the wickedest-looking Frenchman she had ever seen. He was wearing an immaculately tailored suit in brilliant yellow pinstripe, with a grey shirt and a green carnation in his button hole. Rings flashed from his fingers, gold rings in his ears. He reeked of scent and was smoking a large cigar, and although he had a young dark gipsy face, his hair was already quite grey.
Suddenly his black eyes lighted on Imogen.
‘She come with you, Matthieu? What a beautiful girl.’
‘This is Imogen,’ said Matt.
‘Beautiful,’ murmured Antoine, fingering the green dress. ‘You look like a meadow, Mademoiselle. May I come and roll in you some time?’
‘Imogen, baby,’ sighed Matt, ‘I’m afraid this is Antoine de la Tour, playboy of the Western world. In between bouts of debauchery, he makes films.’
‘We are old friends,’ said Antoine. ‘We were at Ox-fawd together.’ He spoke English fluently with a strong Yorkshire accent.
‘My Nanny come from Yorkshire,’ he explained to Imogen. ‘She taught me English, and much else besides. Ever since Nanny, I’ve a tendresse for Yorkshire girls.’
‘Keep your hands off her,’ said Matt. ‘She’s not mine to lend. I only borrowed her for the day. Tell me, do you know anything about Braganzi?’
‘I’ve seen him in Marseilles once,’ said Antoine. ‘And the Duchess, what a beautiful woman.’
‘How do I get to see him?’ asked Matt.
‘You don’t,’ said Antoine. ‘’is house is like a fortress.’
At that moment a redhead came undulating across the room with a pile of silk shirts over her arm. She was of such massive proportions, she made Imogen feel like Twiggy.
‘This is Mimi,’ said Antoine. ‘Good girl, but spik no English.’
He handed her his wallet and, after smiling ravishingly at him, she undulated to the cash desk.
‘Look at those ’ips,’ sighed Antoine, ‘but then I always prefer quantity to quality. Her father is biggest bidet manufacturer in France. ’E finance my next film.’
‘What is it?’ asked Imogen, wondering where Matt had disappeared to.
‘I mek story of ’annibal and the Halps. We import one hondred elephants from Africa. Mimi will ’ave small part as ’annibal’s slave girl.’
‘She’ll be splendid,’ said Imogen.
Matt appeared and handed her a bulging carrier bag. She peered inside, aghast. ‘But Matt, I can’t. I thought we were just fooling about. All these things must have cost a fortune. You can’t give them to me!’
‘All in a good cause,’ said Matt. ‘Consider that they come with the compliments of Port-les-Pins Casino. Let’s go and see Antoine off,’ he added before she could argue any more.
Outside, deep in onlookers, was a huge pale mauve Rolls-Royce with smoked glass windows. Mimi, two Great Danes and a goat were watching television in the back.
A tall sleek Negro in a white suit and dark glasses was opening the door for Antoine.
‘This is Rebel,’ said Antoine. ‘My bodyguard and friend. I want him to play Caesar in my film. But he say it against Black Power principles to play white dictator. We’ll come over to Port-les-Pins this evening. Au revoir, mes petites,’ and he joined Mimi and the menagerie in the back.
‘He certainly has great style,’ said Imogen, still giggling as she and Matt stretched out on the beach later. ‘I mean that grey hair with that young face.’
‘It’s dyed,’ said Matt. ‘You may laugh, but he’s absolutely lethal where women are concerned. You should have seen him at Oxford, bowling them over with his Cartier watches and his dinner jacket with green facings. Any girl worth her salt in those days claimed to be educated at Roedean, Lady Margaret Hall, and Antoine de la Tour. So watch it, mate.’
Although everyone else on the beach was sunbathing topless, Imogen jumped out of her skin as she felt Matt’s fingers undoing the clasp of her bikini.
‘No, I can’t,’ she gasped.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Matt. ‘Turn over. I’ll oil you.’
Imogen shut her eyes and turned over. The hot sun beat red through her lids. Hastily she covered her breasts with her folded arms.
‘Come on,’ said Matt. ‘I want to look at you.’
‘Oh please don’t,’ muttered Imogen. ‘I’m so awful.’
‘Shut up,’ he said, gently pulling down her arms.
‘You’ve been hiding your finest asset for far too long. Nicky was absolutely right about your tits.’
As his hands began to move luxuriously over her stomach, she felt her throat tighten and her mouth go dry. She opened her eyes to find him smiling lazily down at her, the heavy olive lids almost shutting out the dark green eyes. Her heart was going bump-bump like an overloaded spin dryer. Suddenly the beach had become a tiny room.
‘I’ll oil the rest of me,’ she stammered, snatching the tube of Ambre Solaire from him and hastily smothering her tits.
Matt laughed. ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun,’ he said.
‘It’s not the heat of the sun I’m scared of at the moment,’ muttered Imogen, frantically reaching for her bikini top. ‘I’m going for a swim.’
‘Uh, uh,’ he held her down. ‘Not when I’ve just oiled you. Concentrate on getting brown.’
He picked up the evening paper. ‘Bugger,’ he said. ‘Braganzi and the Duchess went to the theatre in Marseilles last night. Jesus, if only I could get in there.’
If he’s totally unmoved by my lying beside him half naked, perhaps it’s all right, thought Imogen, looking timidly around. A few yards away a handsome German was lasciviously rubbing oil into his companion’s enormous breasts. Goodness, I am seeing life, she thought as gradually the tension seeped out of her.
Much later, when Imogen’s bosom and the sea were turning a deep rosy gold, Matt glanced at his watch. ‘Christ it’s late. We’d better get back.’
They drove back in a manic mood. The wireless was roaring out the Fifth symphony. Matt was waltzing the car round the hairpin bends. He was wearing that battered Panama hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. His thick tawny hair was now extravagantly bleached and streaked by the sun, his teeth gleamed white in his brown face.
God, he’s divine. How could I ever have thought he was ugly? she wondered.
‘Such a lovely day,’ she said, stretching luxuriously. ‘And all my heavenly clothes. You are good to me, Matt.’
He looked round and smiled approvingly.
‘Nicky won’t be able to keep his hands off you now.’
Nicky! That brought her up with a jerk. How awful, she hadn’t given him a thought for hours.
Chapter Eleven
Sulky faces greeted them as they drove up to the hotel.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ snapped Cable.
&nbs
p; ‘Exciting each other on the beach at St Trop,’ said Matt.
Nicky and James were gaping at Imogen, who had got out of the car and was standing in the street in her bikini, her hair streaming down her back.
‘Gosh,’ said James in awe. ‘You look like one of the girls at the Motor Show.’
‘Matt seems to have been playing Pygmalion,’ said Cable frostily.
‘Rather successfully, don’t you think?’ said Matt, looking at Imogen.
‘She looks tremendous,’ said James. ‘Have a drink?’
‘We bumped into Antoine de la Tour, mad as ever. He’s coming over this evening. How was the water skiing, darling?’ said Matt to Cable. He bent over to give her a peck on the cheek, but she jerked her head away and spat a remark at him which only he heard.
He straightened up and looked at her.
‘It’s those loving things you do that make me grow so close to you,’ he said in an undertone.
‘Yvonne’s ill,’ said Nicky, who was still staring at Imogen. ‘She’s been stung by a jellyfish.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Matt in concern. ‘Is the poor jellyfish expected to live?’
James tried, but failed, to look affronted.
‘She wants me to sit by her bedside all night,’ he said plaintively. ‘I’d get her some pills to ease the pain, but I can’t make the beastly chemist understand.’
‘I’ll get her something,’ said Matt. ‘Order us a drink. I’ll be right back.’
‘First she says I stink of garlic, and then I mustn’t touch her because of her sunburn, and now this. What a holiday.’ James looked as though he was going to cry.
Nicky turned to Imogen. ‘You look sensational,’ he said, and began to tell her about the water skiing, his eyes wandering over her body as of old. Cable looked so thunderous, Imogen was glad when Matt came back.
‘Here you are,’ he said, handing James a phial of green pills. ‘But tell Yvonne not to take too many. They’re absolute knockouts.’
‘Thanks awfully,’ said James, bolting into the hotel. He came back five minutes later, his face wreathed in smiles.
‘What on earth were they?’ he asked. ‘She went out like a light.’
‘Smarties,’ said Matt. ‘I got them from the sweet shop round the corner. We extracted the green ones.’
Cable was the only person not to join in the shouts of laughter.
‘I’m going to change,’ she said.
‘So am I,’ said Matt grimly.
Imogen, at a discreet distance behind them, saw Matt follow Cable into their room.
‘When are you going to stop buggering up every one else’s holiday?’ she heard him say.
‘Male chauvinist Pygmalion,’ thought Imogen.
Dinner was decidedly stormy. The collision of wills in the bedroom had obviously escalated into a major row. Cable was in a murderous mood, her jaw set, her green eyes glittering. She kept ordering the most expensive things on the menu, and then sending them back untouched.
She was drinking heavily. And although Nicky was listening to her feverish chatter, every so often he cast discreet glances in Imogen’s direction.
Imogen was feeling beautiful in one of the dresses Matt had bought her. She had noticed the way men’s heads had turned and looked at her and stayed looking, as she came into the restaurant. It was a completely new experience. Even Cable couldn’t destroy her mood of euphoria. James, delirious to be off the matrimonial lead, was getting thoroughly overexcited. Matt appeared outwardly unruffled, but he was lighting one cigarette from another.
No one was sorry when Antoine and Mimi arrived and bore them all off to a disco outside the town.
On the way they passed a large turreted house, strewn with creeper, set back from the road behind high walls and huge iron gates.
‘That’s one of Braganzi’s ’ide outs,’ said Antoine. ‘It go straight down to a private beach.’
Above the burglar alarm trill of the cicadas, they could hear the faint baying of guard-dogs.
‘I ’ave made the enquiries, Matthieu,’ Antoine went on. ‘If you go along to Le Bar de le Marine tomorrow lunchtime and ask for a Monsieur Roche, ’e might be able to help.’
The disco was called Verdi’s Requiem. Imogen was almost knocked sideways by the brush-fire smell of pot, Alice Cooper thundering out of the stereo and a mass of writhing bodies. Antoine promptly ordered champagne all round and installed them at the best table.
Immediately Nicky asked Imogen to dance.
‘You look simply terrific,’ he said as soon as they were out of earshot of the others. ‘I hardly recognised you when Matt brought you back this evening. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit offish lately. But when you kept hustling me out of the bedroom and then losing your pills.’
‘It seemed as though I was deliberately rejecting you?’
‘A deliberate rejection was exactly what it semed.’
‘I’m sorry, Nicky. I didn’t mean it.’
‘I’m sorry too. No hard feelings?’
They smiled at each other. His eyes are like velvet, thought Imogen, but was shocked to find herself adding that his forehead was too low, and his smile like a toothpaste commercial. He laid his smooth brown cheek against her hair and drew her closer to him, but her heart didn’t thump in the usual way; she even felt very strong at the knees.
‘Did you have a nice day with Matt?’ he said.
‘Yes, thank you. Did you have a nice day with Cable?’
‘It’s rather like looking after a two year old,’ said Nicky. ‘You have to keep her amused all the time and she’s into everything, particularly boutiques. I can’t think how Matt can afford her. She needs a play pen.’
The moment they got back to the table James swept her on to the floor. It was as though he had hitherto proceeded gingerly through life like a sports car towing a huge cumbersome trailer. But now suddenly the trailer had been detached (or rather stung by a jellyfish) and the sports car was careering off joyfully into the unknown.
‘Jolly handsome chap, Antoine,’ he said as his hands roved eagerly over Imogen’s body. ‘I wonder if I could get away with wearing earrings.’
‘Would it be quite the thing for a Tory candidate?’ shouted Imogen above the din of the music. ‘You’d have to have your ears pierced.’
‘My ears are pierced every day by the voice of my dear wife,’ said James petulantly.
Imogen giggled. She realised she’d had a great deal too much to drink. Oblivious that James was breathing down the front of her dress, and caressing her back, she tried to unravel her confused emotions. Whatever had happened to that undying love she had sworn to Nicky last night?
She looked across the room at him, talking earnestly to Cable, as though he was placating her for dancing so long with Imogen. She was alarmed that she felt no pang of jealousy. What price the constant nymph now?
‘Many a tear has to fall but it’s all in the game,’ sang the record player.
‘That Mimi’s a bit of all right, isn’t she?’ said James, squeezing Imogen ever tighter. ‘How do you say, “Do you bop?” in French?’
A few minutes later James and Mimi had taken the floor.
James, just about coming up to Mimi’s shoulder, happily buried his pink face in her magnificent bosom.
Imogen meanwhile was having a long dance with Antoine, who divided his time between flirting outrageously and telling her how awful he thought Cable was. ‘She is a nighthorse,’ he said finally.
‘Nightmare,’ giggled Imogen. But she was surprised.
She had thought Antoine and Cable would get on. Perhaps they were both too fond of the limelight.
‘This is a very nice place,’ she said.
‘I own it,’ said Antoine simply, looking like the devil himself, swaying in front of her, all in black with his diamonds flashing gaudily, and his white teeth gleaming tigerish in his dark gipsy face. Any moment she expected him to disappear through a trapdoor in a puff of smoke.
‘Oim jolly well pl
eased to see you,’ he said.
‘Mimi goes to Paris at the week-end. I come over and see you. I have villa just behind the village. We might go riding or sailing together. I have been sailing in England, at Calves.’
‘Calves?’ said Imogen, puzzled.
‘Yes, in the Island of Wight.’
‘Oh, Cowes!’ She went off into peals of laughter. She found it impossible to take him seriously.
‘I love England, but I think your countrymen behave atrocious abroad.’
He was looking at James, who, with Mimi’s help was energetically lowering his country’s prestige on the other side of the floor.
‘Mimi make the distress signals,’ he said. ‘I must salvage her. A bientôt, ma cherie,’ and kissing Imogen fondly on both cheeks, he delivered her back to the table.
James asked her to dance, and then Nicky again and then James. Cable, refusing to leave the table and the champagne, was looking absolutely thunderous, and didn’t even cheer up when Nicky made the disc jockey play one of her favourite tunes.
Fate is conspiring against me, thought Cable bitterly. For the first few days of the holiday, everything had gone so well; she had succeeded in enslaving Nicky and James, irritating Yvonne, utterly overshadowing stupid naïve Imogen, and finally most important of all continually keeping Matt on the jump. She knew how upset he had been beneath that apparent imperturbability. She had felt the whole time as though she’d been driving a coach and five with complete success. But tonight, suddenly, she felt the reins slipping out of her hands. Matt had obviously enjoyed his day with Imogen and brought her back looking quite passable – at least Nicky and James and Antoine obviously thought so and were all over her. Men always went for anything new. Cable was further irritated that Antoine hadn’t reacted to her charms.
She’d always heard what a wolf he was and he wasn’t even flickering in her direction. As for that blousy overweight Mimi, even in the gloom of the disco everyone was turning their heads and staring at her in admiration.
In the same way, Cable supposed people would stare at an elephant if it came through the door. And then Nicky wasn’t being as tractable as usual. That very afternoon she’d caught him exchanging surreptitious but no less smouldering glances with a blonde nymphette at the water-skiing club. She’d have to give him some concessions soon. She drained her glass of champagne and banged it imperiously on the table.