Jilly Cooper - Imogen

‘Turn on the transistor,’ screamed Cable, who was hanging from the window.

Imogen turned, pleading to Matt, ‘Please stop her.’

‘Leave her alone. She’s just showing off,’ he said.

‘Oh, let her go,’ said Nicky. ‘I’m fed up with her tantrums.’

Reluctantly, Imogen let go of her hand.

Cable started to clamber down the wall, then missed her footing and crashed to the ground.

‘Are you all right?’ called Imogen, worried.

Nicky and James started to roar with laughter.

‘She’s sitting in the middle of the road,’ said Imogen, giggling in spite of herself. ‘I hope she doesn’t get run over.’

‘Most unlikely,’ said Nicky. ‘It’s a very deserted road, unfortunately.’

‘For goodness sake forget her,’ said Matt. ‘She’ll get bored soon and come in.’

‘But she might have hurt herself,’ said Imogen.

‘Cable yells her head off if she even pricks her finger,’ said Matt.

James put on Cable’s wig, and a pair of earrings and started to do a tango with the Teddy bear. Everyone got slightly hysterical.

‘She’s all hunched up,’ said Imogen. ‘I think she’s crying. I’m going down to her.’

‘Not by yourself,’ said Matt, taking her arm. ‘I’ll come with you.’

As they turned down an alley to reach the back of the hotel, Imogen stumbled. Matt caught her and suddenly she was in his arms, her eyes wide, her heart pounding.

As if by instinct, he bent his head and kissed her, and once she started she found she couldn’t stop. She was powerless to do anything but kiss him back.

It was Matt who had to prise her fingers away from his neck. ‘Easy, sweetheart. We’ve come to look for Cable not the end of the rainbow.’

He groped for a cigarette and, as the match lit up his face, his features were expressionless. Shattered, mortified, Imogen walked beside him. How could she have let herself go like that?

They found Cable lying in a huddle in the street. She was sobbing quietly. Matt was across the road in a flash. In the moonlight Imogen could see that her ankle was grotesquely swollen. Matt dropped on his knees beside her.

‘Oh, God, darling, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’ There was no mistaking the tenderness and concern in his voice.

‘Please don’t go,’ said Cable, through gritted teeth, and as he picked her up to carry her inside, she fainted. When the doctor arrived next morning he said she had broken her ankle.

And that, thought Imogen dully, was that. In the simplest, if most painful, way possible, Cable had drawn Matt back to her side again. Once more she was the centre of attention. Nicky and James — mortified at having laughed at her last night — brought her huge bunches of black grapes. Yvonne, peeved at having missed a drama and furious with James for not coming to bed, was only too keen to take Cable’s part.

Cable, once her ankle was set, took every opportunity to wring every ounce of pathos out of her situation.

‘The terrible thing was,’ she told Yvonne, ‘that when I was in such agony all I could hear was drunken laughter.’

‘Disgusting!’ said Yvonne. ‘How could they have been so heartless?’

After last night’s heartlessness Cable had gone off Nicky again, but she insisted on Matt dancing attendance on her.

‘I think I could just manage a little soup. Could you possibly close the shutters a little? Is it too soon for another pain killer?’

She’s got us over a barrel, thought Imogen angrily, and then felt ashamed of herself. Matt, who was looking tired and on edge, drove everyone out of the bedroom in the end.

James, as a penance, was made to clean the car. Yvonne and Nicky went waterskiing. Rather half-heartedly they tried to persuade Imogen to join them. But she said she preferred to sunbathe. In fact, she just wanted to be alone.

As she lay on the beach she wondered if she’d ever been more unhappy in her life.

After yesterday’s day in bed her suntan had settled to a deep tawny brown, without any red in it. Her hair was streaked with gold. The beach was packed with week-end trippers. Man after man sidled up and asked her to come for a drink or a swim.

She was wondering how much longer she could stand it when a silky voice said, ‘Your sun lotion has spilled.’

‘Oh, go away,’ she snapped and looked up into the wicked brown face of Antoine de la Tour.

‘Antoine!’ she said, her face lighting up. ‘How lovely to see you.’

‘And you, ma petite.’ He sat down beside her, his eyes running over her body.

Imogen told him about Cable.

‘Serve her jolly well right,’ he said. ‘And now she mangle the commiseration out of everyone. I know ’er sort. Mimi has gone back to Paris,’ he added, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes. ‘I am poor boy on my own. ’Ow about the two of us spending the day together.’

Imogen drew circles in the sand, and decided it didn’t really matter what she did now.

‘I’d like to, Antoine. Can I just tell the others?’

But for reasons best known to herself, she didn’t go up and tell Matt where she was going. Instead she left a hastily scrawled note at the desk.

Hours later, she sat drinking brandy on the terrace of Antoine’s villa. The moon, grown slimmer since last night, was pouring white light on to the sea. Fireflies flickered in and out of the orange trees. The Milky Way rose like smoke from the dark hillside. Antoine sprawled in a hammock, smoking a cigar.

The day had passed in a dream. They had ridden along the sand for miles. They had swum and they had dined in a four-star restaurant.

Antoine had been a constantly amusing companion. But although he hadn’t lifted a finger in her direction, she knew he was playing a waiting game. And this time she was dealing with a professional, not a larky amateur like Gilmore. It was like spending the evening with a tiger.

He drained his glass of brandy, stubbed out his cigar and stood over her, very tall, very dark.

‘Let’s go inside,’ he said.

This isn’t really happening to me, thought Imogen, as she sat down on a huge sofa, covered in leopard skins. In about two minutes he’s going to seduce me and I don’t give a damn.

Antoine sat down beside her. He put a warm hand on her throat and slid it very slowly along her cheek to her ear and removed an earring.

‘Pretty, pretty girl,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to make love to you properly?’ He swiftly removed the other earring. ‘Improperly, I mean.’

Oh God, thought Imogen, it’s like being in the dentist’s waiting room! The hi-fi began to swell soft music. Antoine put her earrings on the table and began to stroke her hair.

‘ You’re just too good to be true ,

Can’t take my eyes off you ,’ sang Andy Williams.

Imogen burst into tears.

‘Darling, ma petite, please don’t cry.’ She was sobbing in his arms. ‘It is Matt, is it not?’

She nodded miserably.

‘I thought that was the way the gale was blowing. And what does he feel?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all. He loves Cable. They fight like mad but you should have heard his voice when she hurt her ankle last night.’

Antoine nodded. ‘He is strange mixture. Always he joke and give impression ’e take nothing seriously except the horses and the betting. But beneath, he care about things very deeply. And even at Ox-fawd, he was always one-woman man. Though why ’e choose that ’orrible Cable, I can’t imagine. I go to Rome tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Come with me. I show you nice time. I make you forget.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

‘I give you part in my film.’

He picked up one of the leopard skins and draped it across her shoulders, and stood back with half-closed eyes.