Fast Friends (15 page)

Camilla gave her a doubtful smile.
Mac couldn’t possibly
think that the presence of Loulou — looking like a Dallas
Christmas tree — was a coincidence,
yet Loulou herself believed
implicitly
that he would. How easy it was, she thought sadly, to
see the mistakes made by others, while remaining so utterly
blind
to one’s own.

‘
I’m ready.’ She stood
up, and glimpsed her reflection in
Loulou’s stage lit mirror. It still
shocked her to see her new self,
for a brief
moment to catch herself unawares. The difference
gave her a thrill each
time. ‘I feel like a chaperone.’

‘
Happily,’ grinned Loulou as they headed for
the door, ‘you don’t look like one.’

Nico’s house, overlooking Wimbledon
Common, captivated
Camilla instantly.
Huge, rambling and Victorian, its walls hung
with
Virginia creeper and almost every window ablaze with
light, it
epitomized a truly English home. Twin Christmas trees strung with what seemed
like miles of white lights flanked the
heavy
oak front door, and the glittering lights of another could
be seen
through the hall window. Only the electrically operated gates and the notices
reading ‘Beware — Guard Dogs’ struck a discordant note.

‘Tell me the truth,’ she demanded as Loulou’s navy blue MG
screeched noisily to a halt at the head of the gravelled driveway. ‘Just how
famous
is
Nico?’

Loulou tried to suppress a grin, her
own anxieties forgotten
for a
moment. She had felt it only fair to warn Camilla that
Nico was not, as she had first imagined, a journalist, but in
order to break her in gently had somewhat skated
over the
truth.

‘Well, I suppose he’s a
bit
famous,’ she conceded,
privately
amazed that the almost inevitable
clutch of school girls who
hung
around the front gates hoping for a glimpse of their idol
were not in evidence this morning. Nico,
apparently, wasn’t worth freezing for in temperatures of four below zero. ‘He’s
sold a few records in his time, but you mustn’t let it bother you. You’ve
met him now, so you know how lovely he is — not a bit intimidating.’

‘How many records?’ persisted Camilla slowly. Not having
known who Nico was was beginning to make her feel as gauche
as failing to recognize the Queen at one of her
own garden
parties, but since marrying
Jack, who was a Radio 4 person himself, she had become hopelessly out of touch
with what
was popular.

‘About six million, I think,’ said Loulou over her
shoulder as
she jumped out of the car.
"That’s here in the UK, of course.
He’s sold a lot more than that in Europe. Italy’s crazy about
him.’

Camilla swallowed hard, wishing she could sink down in her
seat and hide in the car until it was time
to leave, but even as
the thought formed in her panicking mind, the
front door was opening and Nico appeared.

‘Christ, it’s cold,’ he shouted, holding out his arms as
Loulou
ran across the gravel towards him. ‘Jane!
I hardly recognized
you with your clothes on. Now come inside at once
and help me with this mulled wine I’ve been concocting.’

He grinned as she came reluctantly
towards him, and gestured
apologetically
with his free arm. ‘I’m sorry, I know I should
have come clean yesterday, but I couldn’t resist it. Are you
cross with
me?’

‘
Very,’ said Camilla,
straight faced, then added: ‘Embar
rassed.’

Loulou, almost bursting with impatience, said: ‘He isn’t
here yet, is he? Are we in time?’

‘
If we hurry,’ replied
Nico solemnly, ‘you may even be able
to sink a few drinks before they
arrive. That should calm your
jangling
nerves . . . will you stop
juddering,
Lou? And get
inside this
damn house?’

He certainly looked more like a rock
star today, thought
Camilla,
as he led them inside. In close-fitting dark green
leather trousers and a darker green
T-shirt upon which, in scarlet,
were the
words ‘Italians do it
bella’ ,
he presented an altogether more dangerous
image than that of yesterday. Yet the easy,
unaffected
smile and good humour were unchanged and she
clung to that fact with
gratitude. She had felt at ease with Nico
before;
knowing now how well known and how wealthy he
clearly was shouldn’t make her react any differently towards
him.
If only she could just stop thinking about it . . .

The interior of the house was spectacularly decorated and
incredibly untidy. In the centre of the
wood-panelled hall stood
a twenty-feet-long carved oak table covered
with pieces of drum
kit, empty beer cans and
dust. Silver candlesticks, tarnished and spotted with green wax, stood sentinel
at either end of a
vast fireplace.
The parquet floor was dull and splattered with
mud.

‘
Like it?’ said Nico, turning to Camilla.

‘
It’s a
beautiful house,’ she said carefully, glancing up at the cobwebs.

‘But a
bloody mess,’ he admitted with a rueful expression.

‘
My housekeeper’s a darling, but she was inconsiderate enough
to fall in love a few weeks ago with the milkman. Couldn’t get
a stroke of work out of her, and then last week she announced
that she was going away on holiday with him to Spain. What
could I
say? I just hope that if and when she comes back she’ll
remember how to work the Hoover. First love,’ he shook his
blond
head and sighed. ‘It’s an alarming thing.’

‘How old is she?’ asked Camilla, thinking that to hire
such a young and obviously vulnerable housekeeper was asking for trouble.

Nico grinned. ‘Fifty-three.’

The kitchen was even worse and Camilla’s hands itched when
she saw the mountains of washing-up. By the
look of it, Nico
was working his way through his fourth dinner-service
in an attempt to avoid getting his hands wet.

‘You could always hire someone temporary.’ Even Loulou
sounded faintly shocked. Nico looked vague.

‘
Keep forgetting to get
around to it. Marian should be back
in a few days or so. She’ll sort it
all out then, I expect.’

They took it in turns to taste the
mulled wine, before
pouring
it into an enormous silver jug and retiring with it to
Nico’s chaotic sitting-room. Scarlet
and grey silk-lined walls
were hung with gold discs and framed photographs which
only made Camilla feel more ashamed.
Even she could
recognize
Paul McCartney, the Princess of Wales and Elton
John, with whom Nico had been photographed. Hastily, she
swallowed half a glass of the hot, spicy drink, and
felt it
course through her bloodstream
like a drug. Loulou, by now
visibly
apprehensive, was already well into her second and
when the doorbell rang moments later she
automatically
reached for a refill.

‘
Why am I here?’ she
wailed loudly, pulling a carefully
pinned ringlet of gold ribbon from
her hair in violent agitation.

‘
Because you bloody well
insisted upon it,’ Nico told her,
rising
to his feet. Camilla breathed in the scent of warm leather
as he passed.

‘
No, no! I mean what’s
my
excuse?’
clamoured Loulou,
shredding
the ribbon and looking aghast. ‘I can’t remember
why I’m supposed to be
here and Mac will guess that . .

‘
Stage fright,’ he said
with a shrug in Camilla’s direction,
and left the room.

‘You’ve brought me here because I’m going to be his new
cleaning woman,’ said Camilla quickly, without even
stopping
to think.

‘Oh, that’s brilliant!’ exclaimed Loulou, still pale, but
smiling
with relief. ‘Cami, you’re an angel.
What would I do without
you?’

No, thought Camilla with a rush of affection and sympathy
–for their ex-husbands were the source of both their problems –what would
I
do
without
you?

Having had Mac described to her by Loulou, Camilla had
known to expect a tall, lean man with black gypsyish
curls,
dark eyes and an exquisite
dimple, but there was far, far more
to
him than that. He was attractive, certainly, but he possessed
an arresting quality which would automatically
draw the
attention of even the most
indifferent onlooker. Unconscious
sex appeal mingled with lazy grace and
a sureness of his actions which was almost hypnotic. It was easy to see why
Loulou had
fallen in love with him, and
equally impossible to know what
Mac was thinking behind that proud,
handsome exterior.

Loulou might have been suffering from stage fright,
Camilla
^t
hought several
uncomfortable minutes later, but she didn’t deserve to, for surely only
actresses suffered from that.

And Loulou was no actress. Every
pent-up emotion was
etched with dazzling
clarity upon her mobile features in perfect
contrast
with Mac’s quite unreadable expression when he saw
his ex-wife sitting
cross-legged in the centre of the sofa. Camilla still couldn’t quite believe
that Loulou had actually said, with a
bright,
false smile, ‘Well, hello, fancy meeting you here!’
Equally toe-curling had been the entirely
unconvincing way
in which she had
immediately launched into a breathless
explanation of her presence there.

. . so I suggested that Camilla would be
just
the
person to take over as Nico’s new housekeeper and Nico was thrilled. He
insisted that we dash straight over . . . so here we are!’

‘Amazing,’ murmured Mac, with that dark, Scottish-accented
voice which made spaghetti of Loulou’s knees.

Amazing isn’t the word for it, thought
Nico, glancing across
at the girl who had introduced herself to him as Jane Smith,
after having been caught by him with rather more than just
her trousers down. He had guessed that it wasn’t her name, but he certainly
hadn’t realized that this was the old school friend who
had left her husband after discovering that he was having an
affair
with Roz. How could he have guessed, after all? Roz had dismissed her as ‘a
great white whale, all knitting patterns and co-ordinated bathroom fittings’.

Nico recalled that first memorable meeting, when he had
admired for too few seconds Camilla’s voluptuous,
lightly
tanned body, and later
devoured the exquisite meal she had
cooked. Camilla was a little shy,
certainly, but in his experience that was an all-too-rare quality in a ‘woman.
He could easily imagine how she would be overawed by someone like Roz, but she
was undoubtedly easier company, and considering what she must have gone through
in the last few weeks she was coping incredibly well.

Don’t judge people by your own
standards, darling, he
thought,
mentally addressing Roz and experiencing a wave of
emotion dangerously close to dislike for the woman who was
his mistress. And don’t dismiss her as easily as
you have,
because if you do, you’re sadly underestimating Camilla.

The interview, as pre-arranged by Nico’s agent, lasted
exactly
one and a half hours.
Cosmopolitan’s
features writer was
determined not
to be captivated by Nico’s famous charm and
asked dozens of questions about politics upon which he patiently
declined
to comment.

‘
We want to know about
your serious side,’ she persisted,
whilst
Mac sorted out the lighting behind them in preparation
for the
photographic session. Camilla saw him smile as Nico, straight-faced, said,
"That would be my left side.’