Jilly Cooper - Octavia

‘Don’t be wet,’ said Gareth brutally. ‘I want you in the office by nine o’clock tomorrow, so we can re-jig the export schedule. In the meantime you’d better take a taxi home and sleep it off.’

‘All the way to Sussex?’ said Xander.

‘You’ve got plenty of mates who’ll put you up for the afternoon. Now beat it.’

Xander walked very unsteadily towards the door, cannoning off the table, the wall and two chairs. At the doorway he paused, looking anxiously at me, clearly about to say something in my defence, but was baulked by Gareth saying again, ‘Go on, get out.’

There was an agonizing pause after he had gone. My stomach gave another earth-shattering rumble. I could feel my early morning cup of coffee sourly churning round inside me. I licked my lips.

‘Now,’ said Gareth grimly, ‘what about you?’ And he looked me over in a way that made me feel very small and uncomfortable and miserable.

‘Can I go too?’ I said, getting to my feet.

‘Sit down .’

I sat.

‘Annabel, can I have those other figures?’ he said.

Annabel Smith handed him a pink folder at the same time putting a new tape in the machine. God, she was enjoying this.

‘You should go cock-fighting next time,’ I said to her. ‘You’d find that even more exciting.’

‘At the moment,’ said Gareth, glancing down at the figures, ‘you’re living in a flat that’s paid for by the firm. I also gather that, when you moved in three years ago, the firm coughed up at least seven grand to have it re-decorated. Since then Seaford-Brennen has not only been paying your phone bills and rates, but also the gas and electricity. And recently Massingham gave you the Porsche on the firm which is costing a fortune to be repaired at the garage. There’s also £3,500 worth of unspecified loans to be accounted for.’

There was another dreadful pause. All you could hear was the hiss of the tape-recorder.

‘It wasn’t just my flat,’ I protested. ‘Directors and clients often stayed there.’

‘And you, I suppose, provided the service.’

‘I bloody did not,’ I said furiously. ‘What d’you think I am — a flaming call girl?’

I was shaking with anger. I could feel my whole body drenched with sweat. Annabel Smith gazed out of the window and re-crossed her beautiful legs.

‘Does she have to be here?’ I went on. ‘I suppose it’s customary to have a woman cop present if you’re going to beat up the prisoner. And can’t you turn that bloody tape-recorder off?’

I imagined them playing it back to each other in bed, drinking Charles Heidsieck and laughing themselves sick. Gareth leaned forward and switched it off. Then he said:

‘Annabel baby, go and get us some coffee, and see that Xander’s safely put into a taxi.’

She smiled and left us, quietly closing the door behind her. I noticed with loathing that there wasn’t a single crease in her black suit.

For a minute Gareth’s fingers drummed on the table. Then he said,

‘For the last three years you’ve been conducting your jet set existence entirely on the firm. Even if we write off your joint junketings with Xander, you owe nearly £6,000. I want you out of that flat by the end of the month and I want the keys to your company car tomorrow. Here are your last quarter’s bills, electricity, telephone for £425 — all discovered unpaid in Massingham’s desk. I want those settled up. They’re all final reminders. And the loan to the firm must be paid off as soon as possible.’

I felt icy cold. I wasn’t going to cry, I wasn’t. I dug my nails into the palms of my hands.

Gareth walked down the table until he was standing over me. Against my will, I looked up. His eyes were as hard and as black as the coal his forefathers had hewn from the mines. In them I could read only hatred and utter contempt, as though he was at last avenging himself for all the wilful havoc I’d created in the past, for breaking up Cathie and Tod, for jeopardizing Gussie and Jeremy.

‘You’re nothing but a bloody parasite,’ he said softly. ‘I’m going to make you sweat, beauty. No more helping yourself to everyone’s money and their men too. The party’s over now. You’re going to get a job and do an honest day’s work like everyone else.’

I couldn’t look away. I sat there, hypnotized like a rabbit by headlights.

‘As your creditor,’ he went on, ‘I’d quite like to know when you’re going to pay up.’

‘I’ll get it next week,’ I whispered.

‘How?’

‘I’ll sell shares.’

He looked at me pityingly.

‘Can’t you get it into your thick head that unless I can put a bomb under them Seaford-Brennen aren’t worth a bean any more? We’ve also had enquiries from the Inland Revenue; you owe them a bit of bread too.’

The Debtor’s Prison loomed. I gripped the edge of the table with my fingers. Then I lost my temper.

‘You bloody upstart,’ I howled. ‘You smug, fat, Welsh prude, walking in here and playing God. Well God’s got a great deal more style than you. You’re nothing but a bully and a thug. They’ll all resign here if you go on humiliating them. See if they don’t, and then you’ll look bloody silly after all your protestations about waving a fairy wand, and turning us into a miracle of the eighties. God, I loathe you, loathe you.’ My voice was rising to a scream now. ‘Marching in here, humiliating Xander and Tommy Lloyd, with that fat slob Ricky lapping it all up.’

I paused, my breath coming in great sobs. Then suddenly something snapped outside me. It was my bra strap, beastly disloyal thing. I felt my right tit plummet. Gareth looked at me for a second, then started to laugh.

‘You should go on the stage, Octavia; you’re utterly wasted on real life,’ he said. ‘Why not pop down to Billingsgate? I’m sure they’d sign you up as a fishwife.’

‘Don’t bug me,’ I screamed, and groping behind me, gathered up a cut glass ash tray and was just about to smash it in his face when he grabbed my wrist.

‘Don’t be silly,’ he snapped. ‘You can’t afford to be done for assault as well. Go on, drop it, drop it.’

I loosened my fingers; the ashtray fell with a thud on the carpet.

I slumped into a chair, trembling violently. Gareth gave me a cigarette and lit it for me.

‘I’ll pay it all back,’ I muttered, through gritted teeth. ‘If I do some modelling I can make that kind of bread in six months.’

‘Things have changed, beauty. You can’t just swan back to work and pull in ten grand a year. There isn’t the work about. You’re twenty-six now, not seventeen, and it shows. Anyway, you haven’t the discipline to cope with full-time modelling, and it won’t do you any good gazing into the camera hour after hour; you’d just get more narcissistic than ever. For Christ’s sake get a job where you can use your brain.’

My mind was running round like a spider in a filling-up bath, trying to think of a crushing enough reply. I was saved by the belle — the luscious Mrs Smith walking in with three cups of coffee. She put one down beside me.

‘I don’t want any,’ I said icily.

‘Oh grow up,’ said Gareth. ‘If you give Annabel a ring she’ll help you to get a job and find you somewhere to live.’

I got to my feet.

‘She’s the last person I’d accept help from,’ I said haughtily, preparing to sweep out. But it is very difficult to make a dignified exit with only one bra strap, particularly if one trips over Mrs Smith’s strategically placed briefcase on the way.

‘I expect Annabel’s even got a safety pin in her bag, if you ask her nicely,’ said Gareth.

I gave a sob and fled from the room.