Imogen

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘I don’t,’ shouted Imogen.

  ‘You picked the wrong guy,’ he said viciously. ‘Antoine’ll have forgotten you by tomorrow.’

  Imogen saw red. ‘Why won’t you listen?’

  ‘Because I’ve had enough of your blarney. Oh Matt, Nicky’s so mean to me. Oh, Matt, I’m so unhappy. Oh, Matt I’m such a constant nymph.’

  ‘Get out! Get out!’ shrieked Imogen. ‘It’s nothing to do with you what I do. Just because you’re tied to Cable’s apron strings, you can’t bear anyone else to have fun.’

  ‘Leave Cable out of this.’

  But she was quite hysterical now. All the pent-up rage and jealousy of the past few days came pouring out of her. She didn’t know what she was saying – every vicious hurtful thing that came into her head.

  Matt grabbed her wrist.

  ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’

  ‘Now who’s repeating himself?’ she said.

  For a moment she thought he was going to hit her. In the long silence that followed, she could only hear his rapid breathing and the pounding of her heart. Then he turned round and went out of the room.

  Imogen stood, stunned and terrified, trembling like a dog on Guy Fawkes Night. How could she have said all those terrible things? She collapsed into a chair and sat hunched up, her face in her hands. Then she gave a low moan. Her earrings were missing. They were pearls and belonged to her mother. They were still on the table at Antoine’s house. She’d have to go and get them.

  Putting on a sweater she tiptoed downstairs. The moon was setting. Drunks were swaying in the streets. She had no difficulty finding the road.

  But it was further than she thought. She passed two men who looked at her curiously and called out to her. But she ran stumbling on. At last there was Antoine’s house gleaming like an iced cake. No windows open at the front. She ran round to the back. If she lugged one of the magnolia tubs underneath and climbed on to it she could just reach. She was wriggling inside when everything round her was suddenly floodlit. Someone seized her by the ankle and pulled her to the ground. A man grabbed her arm and started gabbling at her in French. Struggling and shrieking, she was carried to a waiting car and thrown into the back, where another man pinned her arms behind her back.

  She was being kidnapped. She’d never see Matt again, never see her family. She redoubled her struggles. It was only when the car drew up outside the police station that she realised she’d been arrested.

  ‘Je ne suis pas un burglar. Je suis friend of Antoine de la Tour,’ she said to the fat gendarme who was sitting behind a desk. But he just laughed and threw her into a cell.

  At first she screamed and rattled the bars. But the fat gendarme came up and leered at her. He got out his keys. His meaning was quite plain.

  Imogen shrunk away. ‘Oh non, non – please not that!’

  ‘Ferme ta gueule, encore.’

  She sat on the narrow bed trying to stifle her sobs. No one would ever find her. She would be there for years like the Count of Monte Cristo. It was suffocatingly hot. She dripped with sweat, but was too shattered to think of taking off her sweater. The blazing row with Matt, the horror of her arrest were beginning to take effect. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  The hours crawled by. Light was beginning to seep through the tiny window, when there was a commotion outside. She heard a familiar voice.

  ‘Matt!’ she shrieked.

  He came straight over and took her hands through the bars.

  ‘Imogen, are you all right?’ His face was ashen.

  ‘Oh, please get me out of here. They think I’m a burglar. I was trying to climb into Antoine’s villa to get my earrings.’

  She didn’t understand what Matt was saying to the fat gendarme. But he spoke very slowly and distinctly, waving his Press card back and forward, and the tone of his voice put a chill even into her heart. She was released in two minutes. She fell sobbing into his arms.

  ‘It’s all right, you’re safe. Everything’s all right.’

  It was light in the streets as he drove back to the hotel.

  ‘How did you find me?’ she asked in a small voice.

  ‘As soon as I cooled down, I realised I’d come on too strong. I came back to apologise and found you’d done a bunk. I toured the town for a bit, then I tried Antoine’s house and found the place seething with police and Alsatians. It was simple after that.’

  She hung her head. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry. You seem to have spent your holiday getting me out of trouble.’

  ‘Skip it. I had no right to shout at you. My lousy Irish temper, I’m afraid. Yesterday was a bit trying. Cable – upstaging like nobody’s business. Nicky – sulking. James and Yvonne – at each other’s throats.’

  ‘Poor Matt,’ said Imogen. ‘You haven’t had much of a holiday, have you?’

  Then she tried again. ‘We weren’t doing anything, Antoine and I. Truthfully we weren’t.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. What you get up to is your own affair.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Let’s drop it, shall we?’

  This weary acceptance was far worse than his earlier blinding rage.

  Chapter Eighteen

  As soon as she got back to the hotel she went to bed, lying for a long time in a state of coma before she fell asleep. When she woke it was afternoon.

  Listlessly, she dressed and wandered along the passage to Cable’s room. Chaos met her eyes. Clothes of every colour of the rainbow littered the bed. Suitcases lay all over the floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Imogen, aghast.

  ‘What does it look as though I’m doing?’ snapped Cable. ‘Packing, of course. Since you’re here, you may as well help me. Get those dresses out of the wardrobe – take the coat-hangers too. This beastly hotel can afford them – and put them in this case. My foot is hurting so much, I can’t tell you.’

  She sat down on the bed.

  ‘But where are you going?’ said Imogen.

  Cable gave one of her sly, malicious smiles.

  ‘All roads lead to Rome, darling. But I’m going by way of Milan.’

  Imogen looked horrified. ‘But that’s where Antoine is.’

  ‘Right first time,’ said Cable approvingly. ‘You’re getting perceptive in your old age. Rebel’s collecting me in half-an-hour.’

  ‘But I thought you loathed Antoine.’

  ‘Did you now? Well, I’m entitled to change my mind. I never said he wasn’t attractive. And he’s mad for me, which is half the battle. He telephoned this morning, absolutely gibbering, my dear, and said ever since he met me on Wednesday he couldn’t get me out of his mind. He knew I wasn’t happy with Matt. If I came to Rome, he’d give me the best time in the world. Don’t forget those bikinis hanging from the window. He’s going to give me a part in his film – as a slave girl.’

  ‘And what about Matt?’

  Cable’s face hardened. ‘Don’t talk to me about Matt,’ she said stonily. ‘I’m through with him for good. If anyone deserves his come-uppance, it’s that guy.’

  ‘But what’s he done?’ said Imogen.

  ‘He’s impossible, that’s what. He was in the most vile temper all yesterday, quite unsympathetic about my foot which, incidentally, is absolute agony. Then he swans off for most of the night. God knows what he was up to – that blasted Casino, I suppose. Then he comes in at some ungodly hour this morning, just as I’d taken two more sleeping pills. Put all those bottles in my make-up case, darling. It’s that trunk over there. Where was I?’

  ‘You’d just taken some pills.’

  ‘So I had. Well, I was very uptight, so I began to tell him a few home-truths. Very gently, mind you. And do you know what he said?’

  Imogen shook her head.

  ‘He said, “Why don’t you shut up about your bloody foot. It would have been better for everyone if you’d broken your jaw.”’

  Imogen buried her face in the bottles to hide a smile.

  ‘And then without giving me a chance
to retaliate, he charges out of the room to watch some forest fire that’s broken out in the mountains.’

  There was a knock on the door. Cable jumped nervously.

  ‘Answer it, will you?’ she said.

  A sleek black face appeared round the door. It was Rebel.

  ‘Oh, hullo,’ said Cable with relief. ‘I won’t be long. Could you take these cases down? I’m afraid you’ll have to make two journeys.’

  As soon as Rebel had left the room Imogen pleaded, ‘You can’t leave Matt like this. OK – so he blew his top. But he’ll calm down. He’s worth a million of Antoine. Antoine’s just a lovely playboy.’

  ‘And I’m a lovely playgirl,’ said Cable, wriggling into a green dress that looked faintly familiar.

  ‘But Matt really loves you.’ Imogen was almost in tears.

  ‘He shows it in a most mysterious way,’ said Cable.

  ‘But he’ll be shattered.’

  ‘Won’t he just!’ said Cable gleefully. ‘Men hate it so much more when you take off with one of their mates. Well, if he loves me so much, he can come and get me. And this time it’ll be marriage or nothing.’

  She got an envelope out of the chest of drawers.

  ‘I’ve written him this letter telling him everything,’ she said, spraying it with scent. ‘Will you be sure to give it him?’

  Rebel appeared at the door. ‘You can carry me down this time, darling,’ said Cable.

  Rebel picked her up.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Cable, feeling his muscles and smiling up at him. ‘I don’t think we’ll bother to go as far as Milan.’

  Fear and desolation crept slowly through Imogen’s stomach like a cold wind. She went downstairs and ordered a Coke. Madame came waddling over in carpet slippers.

  ‘’Ave you seen Monsieur O’Connor?’ she asked, putting the Coke tin and a glass on the table.

  Imogen explained about the forest fire.

  ‘Ah,’ said Madame. ‘Well, I ’ave his plane tickets.’

  ‘Tickets?’ said Imogen slowly.

  It was as though another layer of ice was being placed over her heart.

  Madame nodded despondently. ‘Tonight he go. I think ’e meant to take that one back to London for her foot, but she seems to ’ave gone already. Always Monsieur O’Connor stay for two week. But this year, I think he not happy.’

  Mindlessly picking up her Coke tin, Imogen left Madame in full spate and went out into the street. She was numb with horror. It was like some terrible dream. To be suddenly faced with life without Matt. A grey drab expanse stretching to infinity. Tears streaming down her face. Oblivious of the people in the street, she walked blindly to the far end of the cove, and stood there for a long time, looking at the sea frothing like ginger beer on the sand.

  A car was hooting insistently. Blasted French, why did they always drive on their horns.

  ‘Imogen,’ yelled a voice.

  She looked up as the white Mercedes drew alongside her.

  Matt leant across.

  ‘Jump in,’ he said. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

  In a daze she got in.

  He looked at her closely. ‘Poor little love, you look done in.’

  His face and hands were grimy, and his eyes bloodshot, but otherwise he seemed in excellent spirits. But not for long, thought Imogen. Cable’s letter was burning a hole in her pocket.

  As he swung the car off the coast road and headed for the mountains, she said, ‘Matt, I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘And there’s something,’ he said, taking the Coke tin from her and helping himself to a great swig of it, ‘that I must tell you. In spite of her hundred per cent guaranteed sun protection lotion, Yvonne is peeling like a New York tickertape welcome. It’s coming off her in festoons.’

  Imogen couldn’t help giggling.

  ‘How was the fire?’ she asked.

  ‘Raging merrily, but they expect a storm tonight, so no one’s very worried about it. I got a good story, though. Port-les-Pins fire brigade spent all morning bravely fighting the fire, but come lunchtime, like all good Frogs, they downed tools and returned to the town. When they got back three hours later, they found their fire engine burnt to a frazzle.’ His shoulders shook.

  She’d never seen him so happy – it wrung her heart. Oh damn, damn Cable.

  They drove past vineyards and olive groves shimmering like tinfoil, past Braganzi’s fortress and up into the mountains. When they’d gone as far up as the car could go, Matt got out.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her up a steep path to the top.

  Below them stretched a mountainous waste of Old Testament country. The sun moved in and out of the clouds lighting up village and farms. To the right like a judgement on an ungodly people, a great furnace was licking over the hillside. Bits of ash fluttered like snowflakes through the air.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ breathed Imogen.

  ‘I always make a pilgrimage up here every year,’ he said. ‘It’s sort of insurance that I’ll come back again.’

  The highest rock was smothered in undergrowth. Matt pulled away the brambles and the wild lavender to reveal a plaque with a list of names on it.

  ‘Who were they?’ asked Imogen.

  ‘The local resistance fighters in the last war,’ he said. ‘I ought to add your name, oughtn’t I?’

  ‘My name?’ she said in a stifled voice.

  ‘Yes, sweetheart, for resisting the advances of three of the most formidable wolves in the business. Not that you were exactly resisting Larry the other night.’

  She had a feeling he was laughing at her again.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she muttered.

  He sat down in a hollow in the rocks and pulled her down beside him.

  ‘Matt,’ she said desperately, ‘there’s something I must tell you.’

  ‘Tell away then.’ He put his hand under her hair and was gently stroking the back of her neck.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve got a letter for you – from Cable.’ She pulled it out of her pocket and almost flung it at him.

  He picked it up, studied it lazily and tore it into little pieces which the wind scattered in an instant.

  ‘Now arrest me for being a litter-bug,’ he said. ‘I know what’s in that letter. I don’t even have to open it. Cable, driven to distraction by my appalling behaviour and lack of consideration, has pushed off to Rome with Antoine.’

  Imogen looked at him in bewilderment – a faint hope flickering inside her.

  ‘I tried not to get uptight about you and Antoine,’ he said. ‘But in the end I knew I’d go crazy if I didn’t have it out with him. So I rang Milan. He gave me a run-down on last night, corroborating your story word for word. He said you were enchanting, but entirely preoccupied with someone else.’

  Imogen blushed.

  ‘I’m sorry I was so bloody to you last night, little one. It’s that Coleridge thing about being wroth with one we love working like madness in the brain. But I’m glad it happened. It showed me how hung up on you I’d got without realising it. I never felt a fraction of that white-hot murderous rage when I caught Cable being unfaithful.’

  His voice was as soft as an Irish mist, and as he took her face in his hands, they smelt of wood smoke and wild lavender.

  ‘Funny little Imogen. You were like a little girl, running after the rest of us crying, “Wait for me,”’ and he bent his head and kissed her very gently. Next moment she flung her arms round his neck.

  ‘Oh, Matt! Oh, Matt!’

  Much later she said, ‘But I don’t understand. I thought Antoine and Cable loathed each other?’

  ‘Did they? Animosity as intense as that often means the other thing. Neither will trust the other farther than they can throw them, which seems a good basis for a relationship.’

  ‘But she’s expecting you to follow her.’

  ‘She’s got a long wait in front of her then. If you keep turning a light switc
h on and off, on and off, like Cable did, the fuse blows in the end. There’s nothing left.’

  A suspicion crossed Imogen’s mind. ‘Matt, you didn’t put Antoine up to it?’

  He grinned. ‘Not exactly. Let’s say I planted the seed.’

  ‘And what about Nicky?’

  ‘Rumour has it that Nicky has been casting covetous eyes at some nymphette at the waterskiing school. And Tracey’s due back this evening, so I don’t think he’ll be inconsolable for very long. Which leaves you and me.’

  Imogen looked down at her hands. ‘But you’re going back?’

  His face became serious. ‘I’ve got to, darling. The Foreign Desk rang me this morning. This business in Peru’s going to explode at any moment. They want me to fly out tomorrow.’

  Imogen went pale. ‘But you might get hurt.’

  ‘Not I. Matt the cat with nine lives. Besides I’ve got something to come home for now, haven’t I? I got a ticket for you too. I’m sorry to rot up your holiday, but I can’t leave you here alone at the mercy of every passing wolf and gendarme.’

  ‘You’re taking me back to London with you?’ she asked incredulously. Everything was crowding in on her. She couldn’t take so much happiness at once.

  Matt picked up the Coke tin that had fallen on to the ground and wrenched off the silver ring used to open it.

  ‘You can go home to Yorkshire if you like. Or better still,’ he looked at her under drooping lashes, ‘you can shack up in my flat and look after Basil and make up my mind where you want to go for a honeymoon.’

  Imogen opened her mouth and shut it again.

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t rush into anything. Kick the idea round for a bit. You might not like being hitched to a journalist. It’s a rough life. But I warn you, I don’t give up easily. Anyway, people keep telling me I ought to hang on to you – Gilmore, Antoine, the Duchess, Braganzi, Tracey. You’ve got a lot of fans, sweetheart.’

  ‘I have?’ she said in amazement.

  ‘Yep, and I’m the biggest one.’

  He picked up her left hand and slid the Coca-Cola ring on to her wedding-ring finger. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.