Jilly Cooper - Prudence

Bitch, I thought. Perhaps she does mind Jack chatting me up after all.

‘Do you think he’s here for the night?’ I muttered to Pendle as Vatman enthusiastically accepted a refill.

‘Expect so. At least he can dance with Copeland.’

It was an odd party. Jack mixed a hell’s brew with a brandy base. I was as high as a kite after the first glass. Everyone seemed determined to drink as much as possible, as fast as possible. To wash away the boredom, I suppose. Two hours later, things were really in their stride.

Pendle was behaving impeccably, filling my glass, plying me with drink. But there was no message in his eyes. In Jack’s eyes, however, there was too much. He never missed a chance to reach my hand or squeeze me round the waist. Every time I looked up, I seemed to see those dissipated blue eyes smiling at me.

Tinkle, tinkle went the ice in the glasses. Conversation became more extravagant. The ashtrays filled and spilled over. My smile was as brittle as a dried chicken-bone, as I saw the passionate concentration on Pendle’s face each time he talked to Maggie. I talked to one of Rose’s bridge friends about hats.

Everyone fell over Coleridge and Wordsworth who, bored of barking at the door bell, stretched out in front of the blazing log fire. The room was impossibly hot because Rose, worried that Professor Copeland might not appreciate the chilliness of large English houses, had also turned the central heating up full blast.

The Professor arrived late, and stood in the doorway for a minute with his head held high so that everyone stopped talking and looked at him.

‘He likes to make an entrance,’ said Maggie.

He was wearing a grey herring bone jacket, a blue denim button-down shirt, a black knitted tie, grey flannel trousers, and a big black velours hat, which he left in the hall. In his middle forties, he was one of those tall thin, craggy Galbrathian American intellectuals with an impossibly slow drawling voice, who one felt ought to have one hip permanently hitched on to a broken column and be rabbiting on about the beauties of ancient civilization. He was also without doubt the man I’d seen creeping out in his stockinged feet that morning.

Almost immediately Rose brought him over to meet me.

‘Pru’s a writer too,’ she said airily, ‘so I know you’ll get along.’

Professor Copeland concentrated on lighting a revolting pipe, looked at me with hooded eyes, and in a slow drawling voice asked what I was working on at the moment.

I was tempted to say Pendle, then said I was only a copywriter, and at present was wrestling with a tinned peaches campaign.

‘Not South African, I hope?’

I stifled a yawn, and shook my head, and Professor Copeland in between puffs went on to say that he’d never met an ad man who didn’t yearn to be a real creative writer, and he was ‘darn sure’ I’d got a half finished ‘narvel’ in my bottom drawer.

Stifling another yawn, I asked him what he was working on at the moment. He said he was researching a ‘narvel’, which was set in Africa, which he found ethnically interesting, and what a lonely business writing was, and how he’d given up teaching, because he found it so exhausting to ‘carncentrate’ on creative writing. And on and on and on. God, he was a monster, as long in inches as he was short on charm. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Maggie bending over the sofa talking to Pendle. I didn’t like the way she was letting her hand trail along the back of his neck.

‘What’s your novel about?’ I said.

Immediately Professor Copeland waved a long finger at me.

‘No, no,’ he said, crinkling his eyes in what he no doubt thought was a fascinating smile, ‘I’ve had so many good plots pinched in the past. I know you wouldn’t do it deliberately, but you’d be bound to talk about it when you get back to London. I know what vultures these advertising men are.’

‘I hope you’ve insured the bit you’ve already written,’ I said crossly.

‘Come on, Professor, drink up,’ said Jack, managing to top up Copeland’s glass and pat my bottom at the same time.

‘Well just a small one,’ said Copeland. ‘Normally, I don’t drink, I find it dulls the senses, but I’ve had an exhausting week, I guess, so I owe myself a little relaxation with wine and charming women.’

It was really Rose’s evening. What with Vatman, Admiral Walker, Copeland, and sundry elderly letches vying for her favours, she was well away. She put an old record of Night and Day on the gramophone, and danced around waving her cigarette holder in time to the music and sending a cloud of ash on to the floor.

‘Come along Admiral,’ she said gaily, ‘start the ball rolling.’

The Admiral, who had a red face and a laugh like Basil Brush, whistled through his moustache with excitement, and clutched Rose gingerly as if she was a bag of eggs.

‘If I hold you up to my ear, Admiral,’ said Rose, fluttering her eyelashes, ‘will I be able to hear the sea?’

‘God awful old bore,’ said Copeland scathingly as the Admiral breathed even faster, ‘never stops verbalizing about his darned convoys. I better talk with him later this evening to get some more material. I’ve got a blimpish character like him in my novel,’ and he was off.

Really it was impossible to tear Copeland away from himself for more than a second. Thank God, the record ended, and Rose claimed him for the next dance. Next moment, Vatman had taken the floor. He had removed his jacket to show great sweaty patches under his armpits, and was sweeping one of Rose’s bridge friends round like something out of Come Dancing.

I inherited the Admiral, who stood, bristling with rage, watching Copeland and Rose.

‘Damn shame Mulholland isn’t alive,’ he muttered. ‘Never have let a pansy like that in here. Nor would young Ace for that matter. When’s he coming home?’

‘Some time tomorrow,’ I said.

‘About time too. Place has gone to rack and ruin since he left. Best of the bunch, you know. Oh Jack’s got charm, but he can’t really carry his corn, and as for that Pendle, chilly fella; always seems to have given too many pints of blood.’

I knew I ought to defend Pendle, but the Admiral seemed about to have a coronary over Copeland as it was.

‘Never have allowed a pansy like that in here,’ he muttered again.

‘He’s writing a book about Africa,’ I said.

‘Never bin there. Don’t want to. Full of blackamores. Can’t trust these writer chappies. Just read a biography of Monty. Fella made out he was a homo, damned cheek.’

I tried to distract him with small talk, but it was like trying to amuse a dog tied up outside the supermarket, waiting for its mistress to come out.

Vatman, his bald patch glistening with sweat now, paused in his fishtails and telemaques to help himself to some pâté and biscuits on the table. Rose’s bridge friend took the opportunity to escape his clutches.

‘Where on earth did Rose dig him up?’ she said in a horrified whisper.

I left her and the Admiral to it, and went and stood by Pendle.

‘ You made me love you, I didn’t want to do it ,’ sang Al Jolson.

‘Are you enjoying yourself?’ said Pendle with a slightly twisted smile.

‘Surprisingly, yes,’ I said. Oh why didn’t he ask me to dance?

Vatman, who was really getting uncorked now, was trying to cut in on Copeland and Rose.

‘May I personally congratulate the lovely lady of the house on her pâté,’ he said, ‘and request the pleasure of a dance?’

‘In a minute, Arnold,’ cried Rose merrily.

Vatman helped himself to more pâté, washed down by several other people’s drinks. Pendle and I watched him fascinated. Suddenly there was a gasp of horror behind us. It was Maggie; she had turned green.