Jilly Cooper - Octavia

From that moment I was in a dumb blind fury. The only thing that mattered was to pay Seaford-Brennen back, and prove to Gareth and that over-scented fox, Mrs Smith, that I was quite capable of getting a job and fending for myself.

I went out next day and sold all my jewellery. Most of it, apart from my grandmother’s pearls, had been given me by boyfriends. They had been very generous. I got £9,000 for the lot — times were terrible, said the jeweller but at least that would quieten the income tax people for a bit, and pay off the telephone and the housekeeping bills. A woman from a chic second-hand-clothes shop came and bought most of my wardrobe for £600: it must have cost ten times that originally. As she rummaged through my wardrobe I felt she was flaying me alive and rubbing in salt as well. I only kept a handful of dresses I was fond of. There were also a few bits of furniture of my own, the Cotman Xander had given me for my 21st and the picture of the Garden of Eden over the bed. Everything else belonged to the firm.

In the evening Xander rang:

‘Sweetheart, are you all right? I meant to ring you yesterday but I passed out cold. And there hasn’t been a minute today. How was your session with Gareth?’

‘You could hardly say it was riotous,’ I said. ‘No one put on paper hats. How did you get on this morning?’

‘Well that wasn’t exactly riotous either. He certainly knows how to kick a chap when he’s down. I thought about resigning — then I thought why not stick around and see if he can put us on the map again. He is quite impressive, isn’t he?’

‘ Oppressive, certainly.’

‘Well tell it not in Gath or the Clermont, or anywhere else,’ said Xander. ‘But I must confess I do rather like him; he’s so unashamedly butch.’

‘Et tu Brute,’ I said. ‘Look, how soon can I put my two decent pictures up for auction at Sotheby’s?’

‘About a couple of months; but you can’t sell pictures — it’s blasphemy.’

It took a long time to persuade him I had to.

I spent the next week in consultation with bank managers, accountants, tax people, until I came to the final realization that there was nothing left. I had even buried my pride and written to my mother, but got a gin-splashed letter by return saying she had money troubles of her own and couldn’t help.

‘You can’t get your thieving hands on the family money either,’ she had ended with satisfaction. ‘It’s all in trust for Xander’s children, and yours, if you have any.’ The only answer seemed to be to get pregnant.

When everything was added up I still owed the tax people a couple of grand, and Seaford-Brennen’s £3,400. Both said, with great condescension, that they would give me time to pay.

The heat wave moved into its sixth week. Every news bulletin urged people to save water, and warned of the possibilities of a drought. Cattle were being boxed across the country to less parched areas. In the suffocating, airless heat, I tramped the London streets looking for work and a place to live. I never believed how tough it would be.

Just because one doting ex-lover, who’d put up with all my tantrums and unpunctuality, had directed me through the Revson commercial, I was convinced I could swan into acting and modelling jobs. But I found that Equity had clamped down in the past two years, so I couldn’t get film or television commercial work, even if ten million starving out-of-work actresses hadn’t been after each job anyway. Modelling was even more disastrous. I went to several auditions and was turned down. I seemed to have lost my sparkle. Gareth’s words about not being seventeen anymore, and it showing, kept ringing in my ears. The first photographer who booked me for a job refused to use me because I arrived an hour late. The second kept me sweltering for four hours modelling fur coats, expecting me to behave like a perfectly schooled clothes horse, then threw me out when I started arguing. The third sacked me because I took too long to change my make-up. I moved to another agency, and botched up two more jobs. After that one of the gossip columns printed a bitchy piece about my inability to settle down to anything, and as a result no one was prepared to give me work. Gareth was right anyway — it was no cure for a broken heart, gazing into the lens of a camera all day.

I tried a secretarial agency. I asked them what they could offer me. What could I offer them, they answered. Gradually I realized that I was equipped for absolutely nothing. I took a job as a filing clerk in the City. Another catastrophe — within two days I’d completely fouled up the firm’s filing system. Next the agency sent me to a job as a receptionist.

‘All you have to do, Miss Brennen, is to look pleasant and direct people to the right floor.’

I thought I was doing all right, but after three days the Personnel woman sent for me.

‘Receptionists are supposed to be friendly, helpful people. After all, they are the first impression a visitor gets of the company. I’m afraid you’re too arrogant, Miss Brennen; you can’t look down your nose at people in this day and age. Everyone agrees you’ve got an unfortunate manner.’

Unfortunate manor — it sounded like a stately home with dry rot. It was a few seconds before I realized she was giving me the boot. The third job I went to, I smiled and smiled until my jaw ached. I lasted till Thursday; then someone told me I had to man the switchboard. No switchboard was ever unmanned faster. After I’d cut off the managing director and his mistress twice, and the sales manager’s deal-clinching call to Nigeria for the fourth time, a senior secretary with blue hair and a bright red face came down and screamed at me. My nerves in shreds, I screamed back. When I got my first pay packet on Friday morning, it also contained my notice.

Which, all in all, was great on character building but not too hot for morale. One of the bitterest lessons I also learnt was that beauty is largely a matter of time and money. In the old days when I could sleep in until lunchtime, and spend all afternoon sunbathing or slapping on face cream, filing my nails and getting ready to go on the town, it was easy to look good. But now, having to get up at eight o’clock to get to an office by nine-thirty, punched and pummelled to death by commuters on the tube, scurrying round all day with not a moment to do one’s face, not getting home till seven absolutely knackered, it was a very different proposition. I lost another seven pounds and all my self-confidence; for the first time in my life I walked down the street and no one turned their heads to look at me. In a way it was rather a relief.

After the secretarial agency gave me up, I rang up a few old friends who owned boutiques. Their reactions were all the same. They were either laying off staff, or told me kindly that their sort of work would bore me to death, which really meant they thought I was totally unreliable.

In the evenings I went and looked for flats which was even more depressing. Living on my own, I couldn’t afford anywhere remotely reasonable, and in my present mood I couldn’t bear to share with other girls. All that cooking scrambled eggs, knickers dripping over the bath, and shrieking with laughter over last night’s exploits. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t face new people, I was feeling so low I couldn’t believe they’d put up with me.

I was also fast running out of Valium — only six left, not even enough for an overdose. I couldn’t go to my doctor; I owed him too much money. At night I didn’t sleep, tossing and turning, eating my heart out for Gareth, worrying about leaving my darling flat, my only refuge. At the back of my mind, flickering like a snake’s tongue, was the thought of Andreas Katz. If I took up his modelling offer, it would get me off the hook, but I knew once Andreas had something on me, or in this case, everything off me, I’d never escape. I’d be sucked down to damnation like a quicksand. Even Xander had deserted me; he hadn’t called me for days. Gareth must be working the pants off him.