Jilly Cooper - Octavia

I walked listlessly up the street, the drenched gardens bowed down under their great weight of water. The gutters ran like millstreams, the street lamps reflected in the wet pavement. I paused outside my digs, trying to screw up enough courage to go in, rubbing the rain from my eyelashes. The iron gate was ice-cold beneath my touch.

The next minute Monkey hurtled out of the front door and threw himself on me, yelping hysterically, licking my hands, scrabbling at my bare legs with his claws. I tried to creep up the stairs past Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor, but she shot out of the kitchen, her tough roast beef face rigid with disapproval.

‘Damn storm’s snapped off half the delphiniums,’ she said.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. What a shame, after the way you’ve nursed them through the drought,’ I said, sidling up the stairs, but she was not to be deflected.

‘Where on earth have you been? Your office has been ringing all day. People have been calling in. You’re not in any trouble are you? I hope you’ve remembered the rent.’

‘I’ll get it by tomorrow.’ I had reached the bend in the stairs now.

‘The agreement was every fourth Friday in the month,’ she called after me, ‘so I’d like it now; and there’s someone waiting for you upstairs. I told you I won’t have men in after nine o’clock. He must go at once.’

With a heavy heart I climbed the next flight. It must be Xander, waiting for the cash. I opened the door. The room was in darkness. Then my heart gave a lurch. A man was standing against the window. No one could mistake the width of those shoulders. It was Gareth.

‘What are you doing here?’ I whispered.

‘Looking for you,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I love you,’ he said simply, ‘and I can’t go on anymore.’

I ran towards him: ‘Oh please, hold me.’

He put his arms round me and, as he kissed me, I felt the strength and warmth and love flowing out of him.

‘Oh darling,’ he muttered into my hair. ‘Christ, I’m sorry. I was so angry this afternoon, but I was so jealous and I didn’t understand what was going on.’

‘I couldn’t help it,’ I said, starting to sob hysterically. ‘It was the only way I could get the cash.’

‘I know it was. Hush, sweetheart, hush. I’ve been with Xander since I left you. I was so miserable, I had to talk to someone. He told me everything.’

‘Oh God, what’s he going to do?’

‘He told Pamela, then he went to the police. It was the only hope. I took him to the station and held his hand for the first half hour. He’ll be all right.’

‘But what did Pamela say, and Ricky?’

‘Darling, I really couldn’t care less.’

‘I couldn’t let Xander down,’ I muttered. ‘He’s always looked after me.’

‘I know, I know, you’re a bloody star, I just wish you’d come to me, instead of Andreas. Now for God’s sake get out of those wet clothes.’

He let go of me and switched on the light. My legs wouldn’t hold me up any longer so I sat down on the bed, gazing dumbly at him. His right eye had closed up completely now. He was still wearing the same blood-stained shirt but at least someone had bandaged up his arm. The next moment he’d pulled my suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe and, taking my dresses off the hangers, started throwing them in.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Packing. You’re getting out of here.’

‘I haven’t got anywhere else to go,’ I whispered.

‘You’re coming home with me.’

‘But I can’t. Lorna wouldn’t like it.’

‘What’s she got to do with it?’ He picked up my cornflower blue dress. ‘You were wearing that the first time I met you. Put it on now.’ He put it on the bed.

‘But you and Lorna,’ I was gagging on the words. ‘Aren’t you going to get married?’

He stopped for a second, his hands full of my underwear.

‘What on earth gave you that idea?’

‘She did. She said, you and she.’

‘Not me, Charlie !’

‘Charlie,’ I said stupidly. ‘ Charlie! But how on earth?’

‘They met at your place,’ said Gareth. ‘The night she stayed with you, he asked her to come along to the shop, started taking her out, and bingo. She said you said you were crazy about someone that night. She assumed it was Charlie. That’s why she felt so awful about telling you.’

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘It was you all the time. I never stopped loving you for a moment since that evening I was sick on the boat. God, what a stupid muddle!’ And I started to laugh, but it went wrong in the middle and I started to cry again. Gareth chucked the rest of my underclothes into the suitcase and put his arms round me, holding me so tight I thought my ribs would crack.

‘Now for Heaven’s sake get that dress off or I’ll strip it off you myself.’

I started to blush. ‘I can’t while you’re looking.’

He grinned. ‘After that matinée earlier, I can’t see much point in false modesty.’

Then he must have seen something in my face because he turned his back and started talking to Monkey who was sitting shivering in the suitcase.

I’d just peeled off my wet smock when there was a loud knocking on the door. I grabbed a towel as Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor walked in.

‘Miss Brennen,’ she spluttered. ‘I’ve told you I won’t have men in my house. You must leave at once,’ she added to Gareth.

‘She’ll be out of here in five minutes,’ said Gareth curtly, ‘so beat it.’

‘Don’t you dare address me like that, young man,’ said Mrs Lonsdale-Taylor. ‘What about my rent? She owes me £60.’

Gareth put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of notes. He counted out six tenners and gave them to her. Then he looked at poor little Monkey still shuddering in the suitcase.

‘How much d’you want for the dog?’

‘He’s not for sale. He belonged to my late husband.’

‘Ten quid,’ said Gareth.

‘Well, it doesn’t seem right.’

‘Twenty,’ said Gareth, thrusting the notes into her hand. ‘Now get out, you fat bitch, and bully someone your own size.’

Three quarters of an hour later, Gareth and his two waifs had reached home, and were sitting in the drawing-room. Although I was wearing one of his sweaters and nursing a large glass of brandy, I was assailed once again by a terrible fit of shaking. The tension was unbearable. The only sound was Monkey gnawing ecstatically on the remains of a leg of mutton which Gareth had found him in the fridge.

‘He’s happy,’ said Gareth. ‘Now it’s my turn, come here.’

‘I can’t,’ I said in a stifled voice.

‘All right, I’ll come to you.’

He sat down on the sofa about a foot away from me. I gazed desperately at my brandy.

‘I’m now going to give you a short lecture,’ he said. ‘If you had any idea what I’ve been through since we got back from the boat, wanting you so fucking badly I thought I’d go up in smoke. I know I showed it in a funny way, fighting it because I didn’t want to betray myself, because I couldn’t see any way that you could possibly feel the same way about me. The reason I finally agreed to take over Seaford-Brennen was because it gave me a chance to keep in touch with you, and that wasn’t the only length I went to, sucking up to your degenerate brother, Xander, in the hope he might put in a good word for me, ringing Jakey every evening to see you were OK. Why do you suppose none of the guys there ever laid a finger on you? Because I’d have fired them if they had.’

‘I don’t b-believe you,’ I said incredulously.

‘Don’t interrupt,’ he said. ‘You’re also right about my being a Welsh prude. I couldn’t stand anyone coming near you. I nearly went spare over Jeremy and Charlie. This afternoon, as you saw, I flipped my lid.’