Imogen

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘I’m starving,’ said Nicky as the beach emptied for lunch. ‘Let’s find a nice cool restaurant and have something to eat.’

  ‘And something to drink,’ said Larry.

  On the way they called in the hotel, where Cable found a note for Matt.

  ‘Hooray,’ she said, opening it. ‘It’s from the Blaker-Harrises. There’s a big party on tonight. We’re all invited.’

  ‘Will it be smart?’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Pretty,’ said Cable. ‘Lots of Jet Set.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Larry. ‘I’m getting quite pixillated by high life. The Duchess this morning, the Blaker-Harrises tonight. I must go down to the Sieffs again.’

  ‘What does everyone want to eat?’ said James, as they sat down in a little restaurant hung with fishing nets and overlooking the sea. ‘Hands up for Salade Niçoise.’

  ‘I’d like an advocado pear,’ said Tracey.

  ‘I’d like an enormous vodka,’ said Larry.

  He’s deliberately setting out to get drunk again, thought Imogen. A waiter shot past them bearing a plate of pink langoustines to a corner table, and she suddenly felt a stab of misery, remembering last time she’d eaten them with Matt in St Tropez. She wondered for the hundredth time how he was getting on.

  They’d reached the coffee stage by the time he arrived. Cable and Yvonne were discussing what to wear that evening, Nicky was making discreet eyes at Tracey and talking to James about Forest Hills at the same time, Larry was ordering another bottle, when she saw him standing in the doorway watching them.

  I can’t help it, she thought in misery, every time I see him, I want to bound forward like a dog and wag my tail and jump all over him.

  ‘Matt,’ shouted Larry, ‘bon journ main sewer. Qu-est-que ce going on up at Château Braganzi?’

  Matt pulled up a chair and sat down between him and Cable.

  ‘Jesus, what a story,’ he said. ‘It’s so hot it frightens me.’

  ‘Well, have a drink, and then it won’t any more,’ said Larry.

  Matt shook his head. ‘I’d better stay sober. Going to need all the wits I’ve got. I’ll have some coffee. Are you all right, darling?’ he said to Cable, then not giving her time to answer, turned to Imogen. ‘They both sent their love. They gave me a present for you, but I left it behind. I’ll bring it back when I go up this evening and show them the copy – if I ever get it together, that is.’

  ‘You’d better get it written this afternoon,’ said Cable. ‘The Blaker-Harrises are giving a party tonight.’

  ‘Well, they’ll manage without me,’ said Matt.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ snapped Cable. ‘It can’t take you that long. You’re not writing a novel.’

  ‘Bloody nearly. I’ve just talked to the paper. They’re going to hold the review front for it. You can’t churn that out in a couple of hours.’

  ‘There’ll be a lot of talent at the Blaker-Harrises,’ said Cable tauntingly. ‘Rod Stewart’s going to be there.’

  ‘Well, you won’t need me either.’ As soon as he finished the cup of coffee he got to his feet. ‘I’d better get started. Did you find me a typewriter?’

  ‘No,’ said Cable.

  ‘Christ,’ said Matt.

  ‘I did try, but I had a lot of things to do this morning,’ she added defensively.

  ‘I’ve no doubt one of them was human.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ said Cable, momentarily nonplussed.

  ‘You should tidy up after your gentlemen friends. One of them left this on the bed this morning,’ said Matt, and there was a slither of gold as he dropped Nicky’s medallion on to Cable’s lap.

  There was an awful pause, then Cable said, ‘Oh, that’s Nicky’s. The hot tap wasn’t working in his room, so he used our shower. Perhaps you’d have a word with Madame, seeing she’s a friend of yours.’

  Matt looked at Nicky reflectively for a minute and then he laughed. ‘I would have thought a few cold showers would have done you all the good in the world, Nicky boy,’ and he was gone.

  There was another long pause.

  ‘I’m going to the hairdresser this afternoon,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘So am I,’ said Cable.

  Nicky turned to Tracey. ‘How would you like to come for a ride on a pedalo?’

  Larry looked out of the window at the heat haze shimmering on the road out of the village: ‘I think it’s going to snow. I want another large vodka.’

  Larry and Imogen and James went back to the beach and they taught her how to play poker, but before long the heat and the heavy lunch overcame James and he staggered back to the hotel for a siesta. Larry picked up his camera. ‘Let’s wander along the beach. I’d like to take some pictures of you.’

  ‘Oh, please no,’ stammered Imogen. ‘I don’t take a very good photograph.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Larry. ‘I’m the one who takes the good photographs.’

  And certainly he was so quiet and gentle, and snapped away so unobtrusively, and flattered her so outrageously, that she was soon relaxing and posing in every position he suggested, on the rocks, paddling in the shallows, lounging against a breakwater.

  ‘Has anyone told you what a pretty girl you are?’ he said.

  Imogen gazed at his thick black and grey hair, as he bent over the viewfinder.

  ‘Yes, one or two people,’ she said bitterly. ‘And then they rush off with other people, telling me I’m too inexperienced.’

  He looked up. ‘Finding the musical beds confusing, are you? I must say we’re a pretty decadent lot for you to stumble on, except perhaps Yvonne, and she’s enough to put one off respectability for life, the frigid bitch. Turn your head slightly towards the sea, darling, but leave your eyes in the same place.’

  ‘But Matt doesn’t seem like that.’ The temptation to talk about him was too strong.

  ‘Matt’s different,’ said Larry, changing the film.

  ‘In what way?’ said Imogen, letting her hair fall over her face so Larry couldn’t see she was blushing. ‘I mean, when he gave Cable that medallion he must have known what she’d been up to with Nicky, but he didn’t seem in the least put out. He was far more annoyed with her not getting the typewriter.’

  ‘He completely switches off when he’s working. Until he’s got that piece finished, and it’s going to be a bugger – turn your head slightly to the left, darling – he won’t notice if Cable’s being laid end to end by all the frogs in Port-les-Pins.’

  ‘It must be awfully irritating for her. She’s so beautiful.’

  ‘She’s nothing special. Just a spoilt little bitch who doesn’t know what she wants.’

  ‘She wants Matt,’ said Imogen.

  ‘Et alia. But I’ve got a feeling each time she cheats on him, it worries him less – head up a bit, darling – and if he allows her enough rope, she’ll hang herself.’

  Imogen giggled, and felt a bit better, and allowed herself a tiny dream about getting a job in the library on Matt’s newspaper and his taking her on a story, and then getting snowed up.

  ‘That’s enough work for one afternoon,’ said Larry. ‘Let’s go and have a drink.’ He screwed his eyes up to look out to sea. ‘Where’s that pedalo? I hope Nicky hasn’t sunk without Tracey.’

  ‘She is nice,’ said Imogen. ‘In fact it’s been so much better all round since you and she arrived last night. Will it be frightfully grand this evening?’

  ‘It’ll be ludicrous,’ said Larry, tucking his arm through hers. ‘But we might get a few laughs.’

  They turned into the first bar on the front, and sat idly drinking and watching the people coming back from the beach.

  ‘That girl oughtn’t to wear a bikini,’ said Larry, as a fat brunette wobbled past them, ‘she ought to wear an overcoat.’

  ‘You should have seen the sensation Tracey caused on the beach this morning,’ said Imogen. ‘It was a bit like the Pied Piper drawing all the rats into the water when she went down to bathe.’

  Larr
y didn’t answer, and, suddenly turning round, Imogen saw he’d gone as white as a sheet and was gazing mesmerised with horror at a beautiful woman with short light brown hair, and very high cheek bones, who was walking hand in hand with a much younger, athletic-looking man down to the sea.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Imogen.

  He took a slug of his drink with a shaking hand.

  ‘Please tell me,’ she urged. ‘I know something’s wrong. You seem so – well – cheerful, but underneath I’m sure you’re not.’

  For a minute he was silent, his thin face dark and bitter, and she could feel the struggle going on inside him. Then he took a deep breath and said:

  ‘That woman. For a minute I thought she was Bambi.’

  ‘But she’s in Islington.’

  ‘No she isn’t. She’s down here somewhere with her lover. She left me about a fortnight ago.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Imogen with embarrassment. ‘I can’t bear it. You poor thing.’

  ‘I didn’t want everyone pitying me. It was my fault. I suppose I neglected her. I’ve been working so hard the last two years just to survive and pay the school fees. Every night I’d come home and collapse in front of the telly with a double whisky, far too zonked out with my own problems to realise she was unhappy.’

  ‘But when did she start seeing this other man?’ asked Imogen.

  ‘Oh, last year sometime. Suddenly she started finding fault with everything I did. If the washing machine had broken it was my fault. Going home at night was like being parachuted into a fucking minefield. In retrospect I realise now she was picking fights with me to justify falling for this other bloke.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Silly, really. She used to go out every Wednesday to pottery classes. I used to babysit. She was quite often late back, said she and the rest of the class had been to the pub. Then one day I met her pottery teacher in the High Street, and he said what a pity it was she didn’t come to classes any more when she was so talented. I went straight home and she admitted everything. In the old days I suppose I’d have blacked her eye, but I was buggered if I was going to be accused of being a male chauvinist pig, so I just got bombed out of my skull every night.’

  ‘And what about Tracey?’

  ‘She’s just window dressing. She’s a nice girl, but with me putting back the amount I’m putting back at the moment I’m not much use to her in the sack anyway. Best thing for her is to get off with Nicky. They’re well matched intellectually!’

  He took her hand. ‘Look, I’m really sorry to dump on you like this.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Imogen. ‘I’ve felt so useless this holiday. But aren’t you likely to bump into Bambi any minute?’

  He shrugged. ‘I know she and loverboy are staying somewhere on the Riviera. He’s frightfully rich, so it’s bound to be expensive.’

  ‘Does Matt know?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Larry. ‘He rumbled it last night.’

  Back at the hotel they found Cable and Yvonne both with sleek newly washed hair drinking lemon tea with Nicky and James.

  ‘I suppose I’d better ring the paper to see if that film’s arrived,’ said Larry.

  ‘What time have we got to be on parade?’ asked Imogen.

  ‘Well it starts at eight, but I don’t think we need roll up much before nine or nine-thirty,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Must make an entrance,’ muttered Nicky.

  James looked at his watch. ‘Five o’clock. I’ve just got time to ring the office to see if everything’s OK.’

  After that Nicky decided he ought to go and ring his agent, and Cable and Yvonne suddenly came to the conclusion they ought to ring theirs as well.

  Imogen wondered if she ought to keep her end up by ringing the library, but what could she ask them? Had the Mayor returned The Hite Report at last? Was Lady Jacintha still clinging on to Dick Francis? She decided to go upstairs and wash her hair.

  She met Cable coming downstairs looking boot-faced. ‘Matt’s lost his sense of humour. He simply can’t get his dreary piece together. He’s just bitten my head off simply because I asked for some change to telephone. I’ll have to borrow from Gilmore.’

  Imogen turned around and went out to a nearby café and bought six cans of iced beer and a couple of large sandwiches made of French bread and garlic sausage. She could see Cable safely squawking in the telephone box as she went through reception, so she went upstairs and knocked timidly on Matt’s door.

  There was no answer.

  She knocked again.

  ‘Come in,’ shouted a voice. ‘What the bloody hell do you want this time?’

  Inside she found him sitting on a chair that was too small, bashing away at a typewriter on a tiny table that shuddered and trembled under the pressure. His blue denim shirt was drenched with sweat; he looked like a giant trying to ride a Shetland pony. His shoulders were rigid with tension and exasperation; there were scrumpled-up bits of paper all over the floor.

  ‘Can’t you leave me alone for five minutes?’ he said through gritted teeth. Then he looked round, blinked and realised it was her.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you might need something to eat – and drink – not now but later,’ she said nervously. ‘You didn’t have any lunch. You ought to eat.’

  He looked slightly less bootfaced. ‘That was very kind of you, sweetheart.’

  ‘Is it going any better?’

  ‘Nope.’ He pushed his damp hair back from his forehead. ‘It’s going backwards. I’ve got a total brainfreeze. I can’t think how to do it. It’ll break soon, it’s got to. I’ve got to show it to Braganzi before midnight. The bugger is him having to see it; it’s like having to adapt de Sade for the parish mag.’

  His eyes were just hollows in his suntanned face. He flexed his aching back. Suddenly he looked so tired and lost and defeated, she wanted to cradle his head against her and stroke all the tension out of him.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother about what they’re going to think,’ she said. ‘I’m sure if you get across how much they adore each other, and what a sacrifice they had to make, and how the relationship does work, and how he’s not just a cheap hood, they won’t mind what else you say. They’re just panicking that someone might write something that might prejudice her chances of seeing the children again . . . but you know all that anyway. I used to get panicky about essays in exams,’ she said, tumbling over her words in her shyness.

  Matt reached over and opened one of the cans of beer. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘So I used to pretend I wasn’t doing an essay at all, just writing a letter about the subject home to Juliet, trying to make it as amusing for her as possible.’

  Matt grinned for the first time. ‘You think I should pretend I’m writing to Basil?’

  Imogen giggled. ‘Well, maybe something of the sort.’

  ‘Are you going to the Blaker-Harrises?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, for God’s sake wear a chastity belt and a bullet-proof vest. It’s bound to turn into an orgy.’

  He turned back to his typewriter, dismissing her, but as she went out on to the landing, he thanked her once again.

  She was just starting to wash her hair when Larry knocked on the door.

  ‘I’m going back to the hotel to have a bath and change,’ he said. ‘Tracey and I’ll come and pick you up about half eight. We don’t want to miss valuable drinking time.’

  ‘What shall I wear?’ she asked.

  Gilmore went over to her wardrobe. ‘The pink trousers and that pale pink top,’ he said. ‘It’ll look stunning now you’re brown.’

  ‘Will it be smart enough?’ she asked, doubtfully.

  ‘Perfect. I want you to downstage the others. And remember no bra.’

  What was the point of dressing up for a ball, she thought listlessly, when there was no chance of Prince Charming showing up?

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Hey, you look good e
nough to – ah – well good enough for anything,’ said Larry when he collected her. ‘You certainly do things for that sweater.’

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘Yes, and what’s inside it even better.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit tight?’ said Imogen doubtfully. ‘And are you sure trousers will be all right?’

  ‘Perfect. Why wear expensive gear to go to a rugger scrum?’

  He was wearing a pale grey suit and a black shirt, which matched his black and silver hair.

  ‘You look lovely too,’ she said.

  As they went downstairs they could hear the relentless pounding of Matt’s typewriter.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ said Gilmore. ‘Sounds as though he’s getting it together at last.’

  It was a stifling hot night. Tracey, James and Nicky, all in high spirits, were having a drink in the bar. Tracey was wearing a black dress, plunging at the front, slit up to her red pants at the back. Madame had presented James with one of her purple asters for his button hole.

  ‘I’ve never been to a jet set party,’ he was saying. ‘I do hope Bianca Jagger’s there.’

  ‘Who are the Blaker-Harrises anyway?’ asked Nicky.

  ‘He made a fortune in dog food,’ said Larry. ‘I gather they’re staying with some rich frogs called Ducharmé who are giving the party. Are Cable and Yvonne anything like ready, do you suppose? I’d much rather drink at Monsieur Ducharmé’s expense than my own.’

  ‘Well, I’m ready,’ said a gay voice, and Yvonne arrived in a swirl of apple green, with green sandals, and a green ribbon in her red curls.

  ‘You look lovely, my darling,’ said James dutifully.

  ‘Like crème de menthe frappé,’ said Larry under his breath.

  ‘I thought you said it’d be all right to wear trousers,’ muttered Imogen.

  ‘And the most wonderful news,’ went on Yvonne. ‘My agent’s just rung back and said I’m short-listed for Jane Bennet in the new BBC Pride and Prejudice.’

  Everyone gave rather forced exclamations of enthusiasm, and James kissed her, but very gingerly, so as not to disarrange her hair.