Imogen (19 page)
The moment they got back to the table James swept her on to the floor. It was as though he had hitherto proceeded gingerly through life like a sports car towing a huge cumbersome trailer. But now suddenly the trailer had been detached (or rather stung by a jellyfish) and the sports car was careering off joyfully into the unknown.
‘Jolly handsome chap, Antoine,’ he said as his hands roved eagerly over Imogen’s body. ‘I wonder if I could get away with wearing earrings.’
‘Would it be quite the thing for a Tory candidate?’ shouted Imogen above the din of the music. ‘You’d have to have your ears pierced.’
‘My ears are pierced every day by the voice of my dear wife,’ said James petulantly.
Imogen giggled. She realised she’d had a great deal too much to drink. Oblivious that James was breathing down the front of her dress, and caressing her back, she tried to unravel her confused emotions. Whatever had happened to that undying love she had sworn to Nicky last night?
She looked across the room at him, talking earnestly to Cable, as though he was placating her for dancing so long with Imogen. She was alarmed that she felt no pang of jealousy. What price the constant nymph now?
‘
Many a tear has to fall but it’s all in the game
,’ sang the record player.
Many a tear has to fall but it’s all in the game
,’ sang the record player.
‘That Mimi’s a bit of all right, isn’t she?’ said James, squeezing Imogen ever tighter. ‘How do you say, “Do you bop?” in French?’
A few minutes later James and Mimi had taken the floor.
James, just about coming up to Mimi’s shoulder, happily buried his pink face in her magnificent bosom.
Imogen meanwhile was having a long dance with Antoine, who divided his time between flirting outrageously and telling her how awful he thought Cable was. ‘She is a nighthorse,’ he said finally.
‘Nightmare,’ giggled Imogen. But she was surprised.
She had thought Antoine and Cable would get on. Perhaps they were both too fond of the limelight.
‘This is a very nice place,’ she said.
‘I own it,’ said Antoine simply, looking like the devil himself, swaying in front of her, all in black with his diamonds flashing gaudily, and his white teeth gleaming tigerish in his dark gipsy face. Any moment she expected him to disappear through a trapdoor in a puff of smoke.
‘Oim jolly well pleased to see you,’ he said.
‘Mimi goes to Paris at the week-end. I come over and see you. I have villa just behind the village. We might go riding or sailing together. I have been sailing in England, at Calves.’
‘Calves?’ said Imogen, puzzled.
‘Yes, in the Island of Wight.’
‘Oh, Cowes!’ She went off into peals of laughter. She found it impossible to take him seriously.
‘I love England, but I think your countrymen behave atrocious abroad.’
He was looking at James, who, with Mimi’s help was energetically lowering his country’s prestige on the other side of the floor.
‘Mimi make the distress signals,’ he said. ‘I must salvage her.
A bientôt, ma cherie
,’ and kissing Imogen fondly on both cheeks, he delivered her back to the table.
A bientôt, ma cherie
,’ and kissing Imogen fondly on both cheeks, he delivered her back to the table.
James asked her to dance, and then Nicky again and then James. Cable, refusing to leave the table and the champagne, was looking absolutely thunderous, and didn’t even cheer up when Nicky made the disc jockey play one of her favourite tunes.
Fate is conspiring against me, thought Cable bitterly. For the first few days of the holiday, everything had gone so well; she had succeeded in enslaving Nicky and James, irritating Yvonne, utterly overshadowing stupid naïve Imogen, and finally most important of all continually keeping Matt on the jump. She knew how upset he had been beneath that apparent imperturbability. She had felt the whole time as though she’d been driving a coach and five with complete success. But tonight, suddenly, she felt the reins slipping out of her hands. Matt had obviously enjoyed his day with Imogen and brought her back looking quite passable – at least Nicky and James and Antoine obviously thought so and were all over her. Men always went for anything new. Cable was further irritated that Antoine hadn’t reacted to her charms.
She’d always heard what a wolf he was and he wasn’t even flickering in her direction. As for that blousy overweight Mimi, even in the gloom of the disco everyone was turning their heads and staring at her in admiration.
In the same way, Cable supposed people would stare at an elephant if it came through the door. And then Nicky wasn’t being as tractable as usual. That very afternoon she’d caught him exchanging surreptitious but no less smouldering glances with a blonde nymphette at the water-skiing club. She’d have to give him some concessions soon. She drained her glass of champagne and banged it imperiously on the table.
‘Get another bottle,’ she ordered Matt.
Totally ignoring her, Matt turned towards Imogen, who was coming off the floor with James. Her hair was tumbled from dancing, her cheeks flushed, her breasts rising and almost falling out of the low cut dress.
‘My turn I think,’ he said, getting to his feet.
‘Beautiful, beautiful girl,’ said Antoine. ‘How I love Yorkshire girls.’
Nicky was about to agree with him, and claim responsibility for discovering her, then, glancing at Cable’s face, thought better of it.
‘Isn’t that Bianca Jagger over there?’ said James, peering through the gloom. ‘I’m going to ask her to dance.’
Imogen had been waiting to dance with Matt all evening. There was a thrill of excitement in the pit of her stomach, as, loose-jointed, he swayed in front of her, his lazy triangular eyes amused yet approving.
‘You’re having a good evening, darling. They’ve been after you like wasps round a water melon.’
‘It’s entirely due to you,’ she said. She looked across the room at Nicky and Cable who were deep in conversation. Nicky was holding Cable’s hand and apparently trying to calm her down.
‘I’m sorry it didn’t work – getting Nicky off Cable, I mean.’
Matt shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m not losing any sleep,’ he said. The music accelerated, the colours were shifting like a kaleidoscope. The floor was filling up and they were constantly thrown together. Matt put his hands on her shoulders to protect her. She was finding it difficult to breathe.
Suddenly, he buried his face in her neck. Her body turned to liquid.
‘You’ve been pinching Cable’s scent,’ he said.
‘Oh, goodness, I’m sorry,’ said Imogen, blushing crimson in confusion.
‘I don’t mind. Pinch away. It doesn’t suit you, that’s all. Too clinging.’ Imogen was about to say she
felt
clinging when Nicky came over.
felt
clinging when Nicky came over.
‘Antoine’s off, James is about to be duffed up by the husband of a girl he’s convinced is Bianca Jagger, and Cable says she’s bored.’
‘And I’m in absolutely no hurry. Cable can do the waiting for a change,’ said Matt.
Imogen didn’t dare look in Cable’s direction, and tried not to feel elated, as they danced on for another two records by which time the table had emptied.
Outside they found Rebel, the black chauffeur, bearing a heavily embracing Antoine and Mimi away in the huge Rolls-Royce. Cable was crouched over the wheel of the Mercedes with Nicky beside her, an arm along the back of the seat.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ said Cable, furiously revving up the car.
‘Keeping you waiting,’ snapped Matt.
‘You and your darling protégée have been doing that all day.’
‘I should write to
The Times
about it if I were you,’ said Matt.
The Times
about it if I were you,’ said Matt.
‘Stop sending me up,’ howled Cable. ‘You can both bloody well walk home,’ and, jamming her foot down on the accelerator, she thundered off down the coast road.
‘Oh dear,’ said Imogen in horror.
‘Silly bitch,’ said Matt totally unmoved. ‘Shall we walk? It’s only a mile or two. If you’re too knackered I’ll go back and ring for a taxi.’
‘Oh, no, I’d love to,’ said Imogen, unable to believe her luck.
‘Suits me,’ said Matt, taking her arm. ‘I want to have a closer butcher’s at Braganzi’s house on the way.’
After the day’s relentless heat, the night was warm and sultry. Compared with the stuffiness of the disco the air was sweet and smelt faintly of dew, wild thyme and the sea. The cicadas were cawing in the trees like frogs. Port-les-Pins glittered in its cove ahead of them, and every few seconds its northern jut of rock was bathed in a white beam from the lighthouse. Far above them everything in the sky, stars, planets, Milky Way, moon seemed to be out and twinkling eons away in their own heavens. And I’m so lit up they can probably see me twinkling away down here on earth too, thought Imogen. She was swaying slightly from drink and euphoria, but Matt steadied her, holding her above the elbow, gently stroking the inside of her arm with his thumb. He’s probably so used to caressing Cable, he does it automatically, she thought.
‘You’re too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off you,’ hummed Matt abstractedly.
They could see Braganzi’s house ghostly in the moonlight, its turrets thickly hung with creeper and silhouetted against the sky.
‘Is it really necessary to get to see him?’ said Imogen nervously. ‘Oughtn’t you to be relaxing on your holidays?’
‘All journalists are the same. Once they’ve got on to a scent they can’t let it alone, like dogs with a bitch on heat.’
They were only a hundred yards away now. There were two lights on upstairs with bars like lift gates over the windows. Perhaps one was the Duchess’s bedroom. Imogen imagined her brushing out her long dark hair with silver brushes with coronets on. She longed to open all the shutters like an Advent calendar and perhaps find the little baby asleep in one room or Braganzi plotting some dastardly crime in a black shirt and a white tie in another.
Outside the main gates, they could see a figure walking up and down with an Alsatian on a lead. The dog growled, the man stubbed out his cigarette and looked around. Imogen started to tremble.
‘Let’s have a look round the back,’ whispered Matt.
Fifteen foot high walls with another three feet of iron spikes, and rolled barbed wire on top of that, went almost all the way round the house, then divided at the back, running down to the sea and protecting Braganzi’s stretch of private beach.
‘The only way into the house is from the sea,’ whispered Matt, ‘and I bet that’s guarded night and day. He’s not taking any chances, is he? It’s worse than Colditz.’ He looked at the burglar alarms that clung like limpets to the walls of the house.
The brightness of the moonlight and the sweet heavy smell of tobacco plants and night-scented stocks made it all the more sinister.
‘Do let’s go,’ pleaded Imogen. She was sure the guard dogs could hear the frantic hammering of her heart. They were creeping close to the wall now. Suddenly she heard a tinny sound, as her foot hit something metallic.
‘Bugger,’ said Matt, bending down to look. ‘That’s probably an alarm.’
Next moment there was a frantic barking of dogs, and sounds of a door clanging.
‘They’ve rumbled us,’ gasped Imogen.
‘Come here,’ said Matt, and the next moment he’d pushed her down on the ground and was kissing her, tugging down the top of her dress, baring her shoulders. She could feel the rough scrub against her back, and taste the salt and brandy on his lips.
The growling grew closer and more ferocious.
Imogen wriggled in terror.
‘Lie still,’ muttered Matt, putting his full weight on her. ‘It’s a lovely way to go.’
Next moment the area was flooded with light. The dogs charged forward. It seemed they must rip them to pieces, and then suddenly the ferocious growling stopped not six inches away. Imogen’s French was not particularly fluent, but she could just make out Matt furiously asking what the bloody hell the guards thought they were doing as he pulled Imogen’s dress up over her shoulders.
The guards dragged the dogs off and made her and Matt get to their feet. Matt explained that they were holidaymakers who’d got separated from the rest of the party and decided to walk home, that they were staying at La Reconnaissance in Port-les-Pins. Then the guards frisked Matt and had a look at his wallet and his traveller’s cheques. Imogen nearly fainted when she saw that all four men had guns. They certainly took their time searching her, rough hands wandering into the most embarrassing places until Matt shouted at them to leave her alone.
Finally the guards conferred among themselves for a minute and then told them to be on their way, shouting something after them with a coarse laugh that Imogen didn’t understand. She could feel their eyes following her and Matt like eight prongs sticking into their backs.
‘Keep walking! Don’t look round,’ hissed Matt. ‘Thank Christ I didn’t have my passport on me, or they’d have rumbled us.’
After what seemed an eternity they rounded the corner, out of sight, with Port-les-Pins’s friendly lights winking just below them.
Imogen started to tremble violently.
Other books
The Sweetest Revenge by Lucy Felthouse
Traffic Stop by Wentz, Tara
Insperatus by Kelly Varesio
Uncle Al Capone by Deirdre Marie Capone
If You Only Knew by M. William Phelps
the Bounty Hunters (1953) by Leonard, Elmore
Broadway's Most Wanted by Tom Shea
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
The Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
