Cooper Jilly: Emily

‘I hope you’ve been keeping a pretty close guard on your wife lately,’ he said.

Rory stopped in the middle of lighting a cigarette.

‘Shut up, Hamish,’ I snapped.

‘Hush, darling,’ Rory put his hand on my arm. ‘Hamish is about to explain himself.’

‘All I’m saying,’ said Hamish, flashing his false teeth evilly, ‘is that patients often fall in love with their doctors, and it’s nice to know I’m not the only cuckold in Irasa.’

His words brought an uneasy silence.

‘Belt up, Hamish,’ said Buster. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘Oh, I do, Buster, old chap. All I’m saying to Rory is that next time he goes to Edinburgh, and my wife disappears to join him, he should realize that while he’s away, pretty Mrs Balniel will be amusing herself with Dr Maclean.’

‘That’s not true,’ I squeaked.

‘Are you going to take that back?’ said Rory through clenched teeth.

‘No, dear boy, I’m not. Your wife is as big a whore…’

He got no further. Rory had chucked his drink into Hamish’s face.

‘And that’s a waste of good whisky,’ he said.

Hamish, whisky dripping from his face, made a lunge at Rory.

Buster pulled him off.

The doorbell rang noisily, bringing us back to our senses.

‘Buster, Rory,’ shrieked Coco from the hall, ‘I think it must be Marcelle.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Buster, and hurried out.

Hamish wiped the whisky off his face. I dared not look at Rory or Marina.

The next minute, Coco swept into the room with her sister, Marcelle.

We all tried to act normally and everyone kissed everyone on both cheeks. Marcelle was not as pretty as Coco, younger and brassier, but pretty high voltage all the same.

She said, with a touch of malice: ‘I’ve brought you your surprise, chérie. He’s putting the car away and feeling a little shy, too.’

‘Why don’t you go and get him, Buster?’ said Coco.

Buster trotted out obediently.

‘Who can it be?’ said Coco excitedly. ‘I have so many skeletons in the wardrobe.’

I’d had my share of surprises, too. I was still shaking from Hamish’s accusations. I sat down on the sofa. The next moment Buster came through the door. For once he’d lost his superb indolence. He looked shattered. He went up to Coco.

‘Darling,’ he whispered. ‘This is going to be something of a shock.’

‘I hope it’s a nice one,’ said Coco, patting her curls and arranging her breasts in the low-cut black dress. Someone else stood behind Buster in the door, a tall thin figure.

Alerted by everyone’s faces, Buster swung round.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ he snapped. ‘I told you to wait.’

I watched, fascinated, as the man came through the door. He had unruly black hair streaked with grey, high cheek bones, formidable, contemptuous black eyes above grey pouches, and a haughty thin-lipped mouth. He was dressed theatrically in a black cloak with a gold earring hanging from one ear. He looked around slowly, taking everyone in. He must have been at least fifty — but he was still sensationally attractive. And I knew positively that I’d met him somewhere before.

There was a pause, then Coco turned as white as a sheet. ‘Alexei,’ she said in a frozen tone. Then she gave a strange little laugh that was almost a sob, and running towards him, flung her arms round his neck.

The odd thing was the silence. Everyone in the room looked stunned.

‘You’re still very beautiful, Coco,’ Alexei said softly. ‘How did I ever let you go?’

Coco seemed to recover herself.

‘I was not rich enough for you,’ she said unromantically.

‘You haven’t been properly introduced to my husband, have you, Alexei?’ said Coco. ‘Alexei was a great boyfriend of mine before I married Hector,’ she said.

‘So it seems,’ said Buster.

‘I seem to have stumbled on a little family gathering,’ said the stranger with amusement.

Oh, where had I seen that arrogant, equivocal smile before?

‘You must also meet my son, Rory,’ said Coco.

Rory got to his feet.

Very carefully, they looked each other up and down.

I looked from Rory to the stranger. The resemblance was unmistakable.

‘Did you say Alexei was a boyfriend of yours before you married my father, or afterwards?’ Rory said softly.

Coco shrugged her shoulders, ‘Well, a bit of both, darling.’

Alexei turned to Rory. ‘Your mother and I were very much in love but, alas, we neither of us had any money. So she married Hector, and I, alas, martyred in the arms of…’

‘A fat American heiress,’ said Coco.

Then Rory started to laugh. He got a drink and raised it to Hector’s portrait, kilted and bristling, over the fire. ‘So the old bastard wasn’t my father after all,’ he said, and turning to Alexei, ‘I do hope you don’t expect me to call you Daddy?’

Coco smiled. ‘You do not mind, chérie?’

Rory shook his head. ‘As long as his references are all right.’

Alexei grinned in genuine amusement. ‘Oh, they’re extremely good, my dear. I’m Russian; white, of course, and can trace my ancestry back to centuries before Peter the Great.’

His glance wandered in my direction. He had exactly the same way of stripping off all one’s clothes that Rory had.

‘This is Rory’s wife,’ said Coco.

Alexei sighed and bowed over my hand. ‘What a pity,’ he said, ‘I suppose that puts her out of bounds?’

‘I wouldn’t let that worry you,’ I said in a shaking voice. ‘Incest has never deterred anyone in this house.’

I’ll never understand any of them, I thought hopelessly. Only Marina was beginning to generate a fitting amount of emotion.

The next moment she had rushed up to Rory and flung her arms round his neck.

‘Don’t you see, darling?’ she cried wildly. ‘That lets you and me off the hook.’

The room swam before me.

The next moment I blacked out. I remember coming to and seeing a sea of faces and hearing Rory shouting at everyone to get out of the way and give me some air.

‘She looks terrible,’ said Coco. ‘Are you all right, mon ange ?’

‘She got up too soon,’ said Buster.

‘She ought to see someone,’ said Coco.

‘I can see at least ten people already,’ I joked feebly.

‘Shall I call Finn?’ said Marina.

‘No,’ snapped Rory, ‘that’s the last thing she needs,’ and picking me up, he carried me upstairs.

‘You’ll rupture yourself,’ I grumbled, as he stumbled on the top step. Thank God I’d lost some weight in hospital.

Rory kicked the door of the best guest room open. A fire was blazing in the grate. The purple-flowered sheets of the bed were turned down. The scent of freesias filled the room.

‘But it’s all ready for Marcelle,’ I said feebly.

‘She can sleep somewhere else,’ said Rory, depositing me on the bed. He started to undo the zip of my dress.

‘I’ll do it,’ I stammered, leaping away. He looked at me, frowning.

‘Do you hate me so much you can’t even bear me to touch you?’

‘No — I mean…’

‘What do you mean?’ The tension was unbearable.

‘I can’t explain.’ He shrugged his shoulders.

‘All right, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll get you a couple of my mother’s sleeping pills.’

I sat down on the bed, burying my face in my hands. I felt sick. How could I explain to him that I couldn’t bear him to touch me because if he did, I’d only collapse, gibbering with lust, telling him I couldn’t live without him, that I loved him — all the things he hated.

Coco’s sleeping pills must have been very strong. It was mid-day when I woke up. The sun was streaming through the curtains, everything was quiet, except for a persistent thrush, and the occasional click of Buster hitting a captive golf-ball in the garden.