Emily (2 page)

    ‘What did you say?’ said the Australian, who was still smarting under the crack about the Mickey Mouse mask. ‘Are you referring to my girlfriend?’

    ‘I was referring to the silly cow,’ said Rory Balniel. ‘I think she is a silly cow. Don’t try to get tough with me, Kangaroo, or I’ll throw you out of here, all the way to Kangaroo Country, and don’t think I wouldn’t.’ He picked up a wine bottle and deliberately smashed it on the edge of the mantelpiece and then, holding the neck of the bottle, brandished the jagged end in the Australian’s face.

    The Australian clenched his fists. ‘I’ll call the police,’ he said, half-heartedly.

    ‘
What
are you going to call the police?’ said Rory Balniel.

    He picked up another glass from the mantelpiece, and deliberately smashed it on the floor.

    The Australian puffed out his cheeks, and then beat a hasty retreat.

    The two girls roared with laughter again, enjoying themselves hugely. Then they looked around for the next distraction.

    He’s absolutely poisonous, I decided. How does anyone put up with him?

    Picking his way disapprovingly over the broken pieces of glass, the little stockbroker came over and asked me to dance.

    ‘I told you he was a menace, did I not?’ he asked in an undertone.

    He then proceeded to make the most ferocious passes at me on the dance floor. I can never understand why little men are so lecherous. I suppose it’s more concentrated. Fortunately, one of my safety pins gave way and plunged into him, which cooled his ardour a bit. But two seconds later he was back on the attack.

    A quarter of an hour later, black and blue and as mad as a wet hen, I returned to collect my bag. I was really leaving this time. I found Rory Balniel was sitting on the sofa - Tiffany and the blonde on either side of him. Both girls were fondling hands with each other across him, but were so tight, neither of them realized it.

    ‘Rory, darling,’ whispered the blonde.

    ‘Rory, angel,’ murmured Tiffany.

    It looked so ridiculous I burst out laughing. He looked up and started to laugh too.

    ‘I think they’re made for each other,’ he said. And extracting himself, got up and came over.

    I leaned against the wall, partly because I was slewed, partly because my legs wouldn’t hold me up. The impact of this man, close up, was absolutely faint-making.

    ‘Hullo,’ he said.

    ‘Hullo,’ I said. I’ve always been a wizard at repartee. He looked me over consideringly - and he was, undoubtedly, a man who knew how to look.

    ‘The drink has run out,’ he said, taking a final slug of whisky from the bottle.

    He had very white, even teeth, but his fingers were quite heavily stained with nicotine.

    ‘What did you say your name was?’ he said. His voice had lost its earlier bitchy ring - it was soft and husky now.

    ‘I didn’t,’ I said, ‘but since you ask, it’s Emily.’

    ‘Emily - pretty name, old-fashioned name. Are you an old-fashioned girl?’

    ‘Depends what you mean by old-fashioned - prunes and prisms Victorian or Nell Gwyn?’

    He took my hand.

    He’s drunk, I said to myself firmly, trying not to faint with excitement.

    ‘You’re like a little Renoir,’ he said.

    ‘Are those the outsize ones, all grapes and rippling with flesh?’ I said.

    ‘That’s Rubens. Renoirs are soft and blonde and blue-eyed, with pink flesh tones. It’s funny,’ he added, shooting me an X-certificate look, ‘you’re not my tyye at all, but you excite the hell out of me.’

    I remember looking down and seeing my fingers curling and clinging round his, and seeing the one with the longest nail digging itself into the centre of his palm, and being quite unable to stop myself.

    Then suddenly I felt his fingers on my engagement ring.

    I tried to jerk my hand away, but he held on to it, and examined the ring carefully.

    ‘Who gave that to you?’ he said.

    ‘Cedric,’ I said. ‘My - er - fiancé. It’s a terrible word, isn’t it?’ I gave a miserable, insincere little giggle. ‘It’s a terrible ring, too,’ he said.

    ‘It cost a lot of money,’ I said defensively.

    ‘Why isn’t he here?’

    I explained about Cedric being in Norfolk and furthering his political career.

    ‘How long have you been engaged?’

    ‘Nearly eighteen months.’

    The smile Rory Balniel gave me wasn’t at all pleasant. ‘Does he make love on all three channels?’ he said.

    I tried, but failed, to look affronted. ‘He doesn’t make love to me much at all,’ I muttered.

    Rory Balniel was swinging the empty whisky bottle between finger and thumb.

    ‘He doesn’t care about you at all, does he?’

    ‘Cedric and I have a good thing going.’

    ‘If you’re mad about a girl, you don’t let her out of your sight.’

    Instinctively my eyes slid to Tiffany, who was now sleeping peacefully, her head on the blonde girl’s shoulder.

    ‘I’m not exactly mad about her,’ he said.

    ‘She’s stunning looking,’ I said, wistfully.

    He shrugged his shoulders.

    ‘Rolls-Royce body maybe, but Wandsworth mind.’

    I giggled again. Suddenly he bent his head and kissed my bare shoulder. I could feel the ripples of excitement all the way down to my toes. Any moment my dress, safety pins and all, was going to burst into flames. I could have died with excitement.

    I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve got a bottle of whisky at home,’ I said.

    ‘Well, let’s blow then,’ he said.

CHAPTER TWO

    I WASN’T proud of my behaviour. I knew I was treating Cedric abominably, but then I’d never before in my life seen such a distilled essence of temptation as Rory Balniel. And, like Oscar Wilde, I’ve always been able to resist anything except temptation.

    We wandered along the King’s Road, trying to find a taxi, and giggling a great deal as we tried out all the baths sitting outside the bath shop. Then we passed an art gallery. Rory peered moodily through the window at the paintings.

    ‘Look at that crap,’ he said. ‘There but for the gracelessness of God go I, the greatest genius of the twentieth century - which reminds me, I’ve got to see a man about my painting at eleven tomorrow. You’d better set your alarm clock when we get home.’

    Presumptuous, I thought. Does he think I’ll succumb so easily?

    Rory suddenly saw a taxi and flagged it down. We kissed all the way home.

    God - I was enjoying myself. I’d never felt a millionth of that raging, abandoned glory the whole time I’d known Cedric, but it was all tearing along much too fast. I was back-sliding at the speed of light into my dreadful old pre-Cedric ways, and all the dreadful old unrespectable things were going to happen to me. The downward path is easy, but there’s no turning back.

    Stop the taxi, I wanted to scream. Let me out, take me to Liverpool Street, I’ve got to catch a fast train back to East Anglia, back to Cedric and sanity. You’ll pay for this later, Emily. You’ll be sorry; yes, you will!

    No one could have guessed from the ecstatic, passionate, writhing form in Rory’s arms that any sort of moral battle was raging inside me. I’ll say goodbye to him firmly at the door, I told myself. Then when we got to the door I thought: I’ll just give him a very quick drink to be sociable and then out he goes.

    No sooner had I got to the flat, and given him some whisky, than I rushed off to the bathroom, cleaned my teeth and emptied half a bottle of Nina’s scent over myself. I then went and removed the Georgette Heyer from beside my bed, and replaced it with a couple of intellectual French novels.

    I went into the drawing-room.

    ‘Where did you learn to mix whisky like this?’ he said.

    ‘I’m precocious,’ I said lightly, ‘because of my unhappy childhood.’

    ‘Tell me about your unhappy childhood.’

    ‘I was violated by ŕ budgerigar at the age of two. It coloured my whole life.’

    ‘What colour?’

    ‘Emerald green.’

    ‘That’s a nice colour to have your life coloured.’

    That sort of patter got him across the room. I sat down on the sofa; he sat beside me.

    ‘Well?’ he said, smiling at me but making no move.

    I hunted round nervously for something to say. ‘Er, when do you do your painting?’

    ‘Keep still,’ he said, ‘you’ve got something in your hair.’

    I never knew if I had or I hadn’t. But he removed whatever it was and then, unsmilingly, he came closer and kissed me.

    After a bit, I had a pang of conscience and tried to push him away.

    ‘You’re a funny little girl,’ he said, ‘but I like you, I really do.’

    ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ I muttered. ‘Really, I am engaged to Cedric and he wouldn’t approve at all.’

    ‘Shut up,’ he said gently. This time he moved in slowly and deliberately. I had plenty of time to move away, but instead I found myself leaning forward. With his free hand he began to stroke my face, then my neck. No, wait! Stop! I said to myself, but I couldn’t move.

    ‘Oh, baby,’ he said huskily. ‘We’re going to be so good together.’

    The last thing I remember thinking was that Cedric’s photograph should certainly have been turned to the wall.

    It was halfway through the morning when I woke up. The sun was shining through the spaces in the drawn curtain; my skull was pounding and I was lying under the bedclothes, realizing something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

    I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Rory lying fast asleep beside me, with deep shadows under his eyes. He was dreadfully pale, and when he breathed I could see how near the skin his rib-cage was.

    I tried to gather my thoughts around my pounding skull. All I could think was what a stupid thing to have done - the first night I’d met him.

    I looked at the clock. It was half past ten, and I remembered about waking him up to see a man about some paintings. I got up and washed. My face looked all blotchy, like garlic sausages, so I slapped on some casual-looking make-up. Then I threw about two hundred Alka-Seltzers into a glass and got back into bed.

    I think he was still drunk when I woke him up. He got up and drew the curtains, then groped for a cigarette.

    ‘What happened last night?’

    ‘Oh, Rory,’ I wailed. ‘Don’t you remember anything?’

    ‘Well, I remember my childhood. Much of it spent among the sheep in Scotland. And being sacked from Harrow, and being sent down from Oxford. I remember coming South to sell some paintings. After that, it becomes a little blurred.’

    ‘We were at Annie Richmond’s party,’ I said. ‘So we were.’

    ‘And we both had quite a bit to drink and then we came back here.’

    ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, getting into the crumpled bed. ‘And did we?’

    ‘Oh, God! Can’t you remember that?’

    Was I… er… did I perform adequately?’ He didn’t seem embarrassed, only curious.

    ‘You were absolutely sensational, that’s what makes it so awful,’ I said and, rolling over, I buried my face in the pillow and burst into tears.

    He stroked my hair, but I went on sobbing. ‘I’m not usually like this. I don’t just pick up men at parties and leap into bed with them on the first night. At least, not recently,’ I wailed. ‘And you’d better step on it, you’ve got to see that man about your paintings at eleven o’clock.’

    ‘So I have.’ Slowly he clambered out of bed and started to get dressed. I was shot through with misery, but I tried to make a joke of the situation.

    ‘Don’t think it hasn’t been marvellous, because it hasn’t,’ I said with a deliberate sniff.

    He laughed, and when he had dressed and cut himself shaving on Nina’s pink plastic razor, he came back into the bedroom and said, ‘Don’t forget me, will you? Or our night of passion.’

    I put a pillow over my face. ‘I bet you say that to all the girls you lay so expertly and can’t remember the next morning,’ I said.

    ‘See you,’ he said. Then he was gone.

    I went through every kind of hell wondering if he’d come back. I castigated myself for the insanity of going to Annie Richmond’s party, for letting Rory make love to me - which, despite his not remembering anything about it, had been an utterly intoxicating experience which would spoil me for Cedric for evermore.

    The telephone rang three times, each time for Nina, and each time the caller got his head bitten off for not being Rory. At four o’clock, realizing he wasn’t coming back, I got up, had a bath, cried for an hour and then poured myself a large whisky. Really, I was acquiring a lot of bad habits. I’d be eating between meals soon!

    At six o’clock the doorbell rang. Keep calm, I told myself. Play it cool. It’s bound to be the milkman, or some Salvation Army lady after loot.

    But it was Rory, swaying in the doorway and looking green. ‘I’ve just been sick in a window-box,’ he said.

    I laughed, trying to keep the joy out of my face. ‘Come in,’ I said.

    He headed straight for the whisky. ‘May I have a drink?’ he said. ‘My hang-over ought to go down in medical history. Childbirth has nothing on it.’

    He had the most awful shakes.

    ‘There’s a reason for all this drinking,’ he went on. ‘But at the moment, I’m glad to say, I can’t remember what it is. I really oughtn’t to have come back - I’m afraid I’ve run out of money.’

    ‘I’ve always wanted to keep a man,’ I said. ‘Stick with me, baby, and you’ll be up to your ears in race-horses.’

    ‘It’s not as bad as that. I got on well at the Art Gallery.’

    ‘Did he like your paintings?’ I said.

    He nodded. ‘He’s going to give me an exhibition in the spring.’

    ‘But that’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘You’ll be famous.’

    ‘I know.’ He peered in the mirror, pushing a lock of black hair out of his eyes. ‘I don’t think it suits me. I feel terrible.’

    ‘You ought to eat something,’ I said.

    ‘You’re sweet. I wish I had a little sister like you - God, how maudlin can one get?’

    In fact he was very ill all night and most of the next day; delirious and with a raging temperature, pouring with sweat, clinging to me, muttering incoherently and shaking like a puppy. On Sunday night, however, he felt better. Suddenly, picking up Cedric’s photograph, he threw it out of the window.

    ‘That wasn’t very friendly,’ I said, listening to the tinkle of broken glass.

    ‘When’s he coming back?’

    ‘Tomorrow. Cedric’s very good to me. He keeps me on the rails. Before I met him, it was one layabout after another.’

    The restless dark eyes travelled over me. ‘That’s because you’re a giver, Emily, and you hate hurting people. You slept with all those men because you couldn’t say no rather than because you wanted to say yes.’

    ‘Oh, not always. Anyway, there weren’t that many of them - in single figures, that is.’

    ‘If I rang you up and asked you out,’ he went on undeterred, ‘even if you didn’t fancy me, you’d say yes because you couldn’t bear to upset me. Then you’d send me a cable at the last moment, or get one of your mates to ring up and say you were dying of food poisoning.’

    ‘How do you know?’ I said sulkily.

    ‘I know,’ he said, and pulled me into his arms. The electric currents were rippling all over me again. ‘You’re ill,’ I protested.

    ‘Not that ill,’ he said.

    ‘I’m bored with living in sin,’ he said, a couple of hours later. ‘Let’s get married.’

    I looked at him incredulously, reeling from the shock.

    ‘You’d better send Cedric a telegram immediately,’ he said. ‘I don’t want him hanging around being a bloody nuisance to us.’

    ‘Did you say you wanted to marry me?’ I whispered. ‘You can’t want to marry me. I mean, what about all those girls after you? You could marry anyone. Why me?’

    ‘I’m kinky that way,’ he said. ‘I’ll try anything once.’

    ‘But where will we live?’ I said, bewildered.

    ‘In Scotland. I’ve got a place up there. I’m much nicer in Scotland, London does frightful things to me - and I’m due to inherit a bit of money shortly, so we won’t starve.’

    ‘But… but…’ I stammered. I really wanted him to take me in his arms and say he loved me to distraction, but then the telephone rang.

    Rory picked it up. ‘Hullo, who that? Oh, Cedric.’ A slightly malicious gleam came into his eyes. ‘We haven’t met. My name’s Balniel, Rory Balniel. How was the political rally? Oh, well that’s splendid. You deserve some compensation because I’m afraid Emily has just agreed to marry me - and she’ll be dispensing with your disservices from now on.’

    ‘Oh, no,’ I protested. ‘Poor Cedric.’

    I could hear him spluttering away on the other end of the telephone.

    ‘Well I’m afraid you’ve lost your deposit on this one,’ said Rory, and put down the receiver.

    ‘Cedric will be very, very angry,’ I said in awe.