Jilly Cooper - Octavia

‘You’ve got to talk to Gussie,’ said Jeremy. ‘Tell her it was all your fault. All right, I admit I tried to pull you this afternoon, but my God, I had provocation.’

‘I know you did,’ I said listlessly. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I wanted you so much; then when it came to the crunch, I found I didn’t after all.’

‘Yeah well, it’s the same with me. I was crazy about you, but now I realize I’m in danger of losing Gus, it all seems a terrible mistake. It’s the ill-wind department, I suppose. Takes a jolt like this to make you realize how much you really need someone. She’s so straight, Gus.’

I’d seldom seen a man more shattered.

‘Tell her it was your doing,’ he pleaded. ‘Tell her how much you led me on. It’s no skin off your nose.’

‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll talk to her. But it’s no good trying to see her until tomorrow.’

On the day after we got back to London, I tried to ring Gussie several times at the office. Finally they admitted she hadn’t come in, so I went round to her flat. It was a typical girl’s flat — unwashed cups and overflowing ashtrays everywhere and three half-unpacked suitcases in the drawing-room. I removed a grubby white bra and a brown apple core from one of the armchairs and sat down.

‘What do you want?’ asked Gussie. She was still in her dressing gown and her face was swollen with crying.

‘To explain about Jeremy,’ I said.

‘I don’t want any of your lies,’ she said.

‘But you’ve got to listen. It was all my fault, you see, from the beginning. I took one look at Jeremy that first night at Arabella’s and he was so beautiful I decided I must get him away from you at all costs. I never wanted anyone so much in all my life so I pulled out all the stops — making eyes at him, admitting to his face that I fancied him, wandering round with only a towel falling off me, arranging to meet him on deck after you’d gone to sleep. He didn’t stand a chance.’

She looked at me in horror. ‘You actually went out of your way to get him?’

I nodded. ‘I made an absolutely dead set that evening at the Hamilton’s party,’ I went on, lying now. ‘When I got drunk and behaved so badly, it was only because I was furious with Jeremy, because he wasn’t reacting at all.’

‘But what happened yesterday?’

‘I was sulking by myself on the boat, when Jeremy turned up, worried I’d been gone for such a long time, and well, I sort of tried to seduce him.’

‘And that’s when Gareth and I came in?’

‘That’s right.’ I got up and wandered over to the window. ‘Any man would have been flattered by being pursued so relentlessly. It was just the heat and being cooped up on the boat together. Hell, he only kissed me, anyway. He loves you, he does really. He was absolutely demented on the way home last night.’

Gussie pulled at a wispy bit of hair.

‘He was?’ she said dully.

‘Anyway,’ I went on, ‘you said the other day on the boat, that you expected him to be unfaithful to you and you’d always forgive him.’

‘I know I did,’ said Gussie with a sob, ‘but one says such stupid things in theory, and they’re so horrible when they happen in practice.’

I went over and put my arm round her. ‘Please don’t cry, Gussie.’

‘Don’t touch me,’ she hissed. ‘I was thinking about you all last night. You’re wicked, you’ve always been wicked. Ever since we were at school together, you’ve resented my friends and tried to take them away from me. And now you’ve stolen the most precious thing I ever had. Why do you do it? You’re so beautiful you can have any man you choose.’

‘Because I’ve always been jealous of you,’ I said slowly, echoing Gareth’s words. ‘Because, in spite of my yellow hair and my long legs, people have always liked you more than they liked me.’

There was a pause.

‘I suppose it was kind of you to come and tell me all this,’ she said in a set little voice. ‘It does make a difference. I had a long talk to Gareth last night.’

‘What did he say?’ I tried to keep my voice expressionless.

‘That Jeremy was basically a lightweight, that I’d do better to cut my losses and pack him in. He said you may have encouraged Jeremy in the beginning, but on reflection he guessed that he was only too ready to be distracted and that it was Jeremy who forced the pace yesterday. He said marriage to Jeremy would be one long string of infidelities, and he was only marrying me for security and for my money.’

‘But that’s brutal!’ I gasped.

‘Isn’t it? But that’s the thing I like about Gareth, he tells the truth about things that matter.’

‘Did he say anything else?’ I said numbly. ‘About me, I mean.’

‘Not much. He agreed with me that if you really set your cap at someone, it would be almost impossible to resist you.’

I bit my lip. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not so easy for me,’ Gussie said, playing with the tassel of her dressing gown. ‘I don’t get boyfriends very easily. Jeremy was the first man who ever said he loved me. I can’t go to a party tomorrow like you can, and pick up a new man just like that. I can’t walk down the street and be caressed and comforted by the admiration in men’s eyes. You haven’t a clue what it’s like not having any sex appeal. With you it’s only a question of time. I may never meet another man who wants to marry me.’

I felt a flash of irritation. Why the hell didn’t she go on a diet? Then I felt guilty.

‘Will you ever be able to forgive me?’

‘I don’t know, not now. Perhaps in a few weeks I shall feel differently.’

I went towards the door.

‘Will you see Jeremy if he turns up here?’

She burst into tears. ‘Oh yes, of course I will.’

It was only when I left her that the full desolation of my situation hit me. Since we’d left the boat I had been numb with misery, as though I’d put my heart in deep freeze until I had straightened the account with Gussie and Jeremy. Now I had to face up to the future — to the agony of loving a man who hated and despised me — who would despise me even more once he heard what I had told Gussie.

For the next few days I was on the rack. I never believed it was possible to suffer so much. Pride, despair and longing chased each other monotonously around my head. I cried all night and, at the slightest provocation, during the day. Over and over again I wandered down to the river and wondered whether to jump in. A thousand times I started letters to Gareth, pleading my case, but each time I tore them up. My case was so hopeless, I couldn’t even take refuge in daydreams. Most evenings I borrowed my landlord’s car, drove it across London and lay in wait outside Gareth’s house, but there were never any lights on and I used to turn the engine off and cry uncontrollably.

The blistering hot weather continued to grip London by the throat. Outside my flat Green Park was fast losing its greenness, the plane trees were coated in thick grey dust, the grass bleached to a lifeless yellow. Commuters wilted silently at the bus stops.

Two Mondays after we got back from the boat, I was woken by the doorbell ringing on and on. Wrapping a towel round me, I waded through the post, which was scattered over the carpet and consisted entirely of brown envelopes. I peered through the spy-hole, in a blind hope it might be Gareth. But it was only a thin youth with a moustache, and ears like the FA cup, wearing a crumpled suit and a battery of fountain pens in his breast pocket. He obviously had no intention of getting off that bell. I opened the door. He looked at me wearily.