Eugenie, however, had coolly withdrawn her hand, turned to the couple next to her and asked if she could steal one of their Maltesers.
So no, he wasn’t going to get her off David. But he was quietly confident that he could get David to leave her.
‘It was fabulous up there,’ David said when he came back from the Lakes. ‘We had great weather, and Andrew knew this pub, with rooms and they’d do you dinner at night. So we’d have a massive breakfast, then do a walk, then go to another pub for a ploughman’s – that was always massive as well, I don’t know how that guy keeps so slim, and then in the afternoon we’d flake out in a field.’
‘So you went to the Lake District but you didn’t actually go on a lake?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not compulsory, actually.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Oh, this and that.’
‘Did Andrew talk about me?’
‘You? No. The only girl he mentioned was someone called Marsha.’
Oh really? The office lawyer who was a Joan Collins lookalike. Obviously,Andrew had got an office romance going with her. Of course, they’d handle it discreetly. Arrive separately, leave separately, no messing around in office hours on Marsha’s sofa.
‘I’ve got to get a move on with my driving,’ David said. ‘Take my test. Andrew wants us to fly to Dublin, pick up a car and drive to Galway. That’s where he’s from. Galway. But he doesn’t want to drive, because he’s colour blind. Can’t tell red from green. Tricky at traffic lights.’
‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know Andrew was colour blind.’
‘No. Well why should you?’
*
Eugenie could work out, really, exactly when and how it all became so bad.
David came back from Galway and told her how easy it was, driving on empty roads, Andrew’s family had been so welcoming, one brother was the local milkman, the other ran the pub. Evenings in the pub were a riot and he was hungover every morning but he and Andrew had always managed to stagger out for a walk. Galway Bay, of course, was Atlantic so it was always pretty fresh, he’d needed his sweater.
‘And what have you been up to?’ he said at last.
‘Running the office. Revel took Rhoda to Venice. He said they wouldn’t need to hire a gondalier, Rhoda could do it. All that practice punting on the Cambridge backs.’
‘I thought you might be having lunch with that old friend of yours. Glo. You never mention her.’
‘No.’
‘Why has your face gone all red? What did you do?’
She told him. How Glo had drawn Princess Anne’s wedding dress on the café napkin. How she had promised Glo she would never, ever tell. How she had rushed to a phone box and called Becca Simon on the Mail.
David lit a Marlboro.
‘You never used to smoke, David.’
‘Well I do now. It’s what you’ve driven me to.’ He was pacing round the sitting room. ‘You know, Eugenie, I was so proud of you when you got that job on Stet. That magazine. But you’ve changed. You didn’t go to Lou’s wedding. You were at school with Lou. She’s one of your oldest friends. And you couldn’t be bothered turning up at her wedding.’
‘I told you. I was not going to dress up as a fucking butterfly!’
‘And you never used to swear. Now you’re getting as bad as Revel. And you betrayed Glo. That is absolutely unforgiveable. She got you that job on Stet.’
‘She did not! I got it myself because Revel was impressed I’d played cricket.’
‘Yes, but Glo was the one who saw the advert in the Standard. You wouldn’t have known Stet existed. You’d just have carried on FIBing.’
‘Anyway, about Glo. I can’t be expected to behave like a bloody Girl Scout!’
‘Girl Scouts are honest in thought, word and deed. You, Eugenie, are a lying, cheating heap of shit. You’ve turned into a typical, hard-faced hack.’
‘I’m going to the shops.’
When she came back he was in the bedroom, with his rucksack open.
‘What are you doing, David?’
‘Packing.’
‘Why?’
He zipped up his rucksack. ‘Because I’m going away.’
‘I got chops. Lamb chops. You like lamb chops.’
‘You’re blocking the way.’
She moved aside. ‘Where are you going?’
He went into the hall, and with some deliberation, laid his keys on the table.
‘I said, where are you going?’
He said, over his shoulder, as he went out of the door, ‘I’m going back to China.’
Eugenie thought it was such a good exit-line, it didn’t deserve a sarcastic taunt about his Mandarin Orange or his Chinese Dumpling. She ran across to the middle window. She thought of the number of times she had stood here, watching David leave. The way, after they’d first made love, he’d blown her a kiss with the look of someone who had discovered that Cloud Nine really existed. She remembered the way he’d turn and grin at her as she saw him off to school. Then the jaunty thumbs up sign before he left on his big trip.
Today, of course, he would not turn and wave, or blow her a kiss. He walked straight towards a waiting red Mini. Eugenie could see a girl in the back. David slung his rucksack onto the seat beside her, and got in the front of the car next to Art. The Mini drove off.
Eugenie stood for a few minutes. David might have forgotten something. He might come back. He might not have really meant it.
She opened the window to get rid of his cigarette smoke. Dear little Spring Flower, with her liberated ways. She had taught him to smoke. What other clever tricks was she going to be showing him?
Eugenie went into her office. She sat down, and dialled the number for Andrew Millard.
Acknowledgements
For refreshing my memories of Fleet Street, I am grateful to Robert Waterhouse, Nick Kent and Bill Hagerty. I must also thank Marie Fucci and Loretta for Spring Flower.
In Bed with Mr. Plantagenet Page 21