Jilly Cooper: Prudence

I cleared away. It was sad that people could leave more on their plates than you appeared to have given them in the first place. I didn’t bother with the pudding, and by the time I got back with the coffee, the commercial break was over, and Jane and Rodney were stuck into some political scandal on the news. Tiger Millfield was listening owlishly to Ariadne yapping on about wheat germ. Pendle was looking at his watch.

‘Where’s your glass?’ I said.

‘I must go.’

‘But it’s early. Now beastly dinner’s over we can relax.’

‘I’ve got to drive down to Winchester early tomorrow morning. The brief only arrived this evening. I haven’t studied it yet.’

He nodded a curt goodbye to everyone else, and I followed him out into the hall.

‘Will you be down in Winchester long?’ I said, suddenly overwhelmed by desolation.

‘A couple of days. Thank you for having me.’

‘You certainly floored Rodney,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you felt so strongly about advertising.’

His eyes gleamed wickedly.

‘I don’t. If I’d wanted to I could have argued the case for advertising just as well.’

‘B-but you were so convincing,’ I said.

‘That’s my job.’

And he was gone, without even saying he’d ring me.

Back in the drawing-room Tiger Millfield was trying to ring for a taxi on the answer-phone. In the end he decided to go and flag one down in the street, taking Ariadne with him, thank goodness.

‘You get so tired on a diet,’ she said. ‘Are you coming, Rodney?’

‘I’ll stay on a bit,’ said Rodney. ‘Mustn’t break up the party all at once.’

I left Rodney and Jane, and went into the kitchen. I felt near to tears, physically and mentally exhausted. The hostess with the leastest, Mrs Utterly Beaten. A pile of pots, pans, glasses, plates and uneaten food greeted me. I couldn’t face it. I went back into the drawing-room. Rodney was sitting in an armchair, rolling a joint, telling Jane about the pot he grew in his back garden. Jane was leaning against his knees. They stopped talking when they saw me.

‘Lovely dins, darling,’ said Rodney.

‘I’m sorry about the beef,’ I said, flopping into an armchair.

‘You were had by the butcher,’ said Jane.

‘I never know if meat’s tender just by looking at it,’ I said. ‘It all looks the same, like Chinamen.’

‘Rodney’s going to put me on a poster,’ said Jane. ‘You’re going to see me hoarding down from every stare.’

There was a long pause. Then they both said simultaneously,

‘Darling, he’s not for you.’

‘Why not?’ I said, blushing.

‘Because he’s a bastard,’ said Rodney.

‘It’s only because he worsted you in an argument,’ I said. ‘He didn’t really mean what he said about advertising, he admitted it outside in the hall. He could’ve just as easily argued for advertising.’

‘That’s what’s wrong with him,’ said Jane, ‘he’s inhuman.’

‘Beneath that cold chilly legal exterior,’ said Rodney, ‘is an even chillier legal heart.’ He handed Jane the joint; she inhaled deeply.

‘I don’t know why he didn’t go and sit in the fridge,’ she said with a giggle. ‘Might have warmed him up a bit.’

She offered it to me, but I shook my head. I felt too miserable.

‘Come on, cheer up,’ said Rodney. ‘There are plenty more cold fish in the sea.’

‘But I don’t want to go out with a fish. Why does he keep asking me out?’ I said with a sob.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rodney. ‘He’s obviously far more interested in his own briefs than getting into yours.’

‘If he really cared for you,’ said Jane, ‘he’d have made an effort to be polite instead of freezing us out.’

‘Whatever he feels for you,’ said Rodney, much more gently, ‘it isn’t the normal healthy lust a man feels for a beautiful normal girl. He’s playing games with you, Pru, and I don’t reckon he’s up to any good.’

Whatever game Pendle was playing, he left me to stew after the dinner party. He didn’t ring me for a fortnight. I kidded myself he must be working hard, probably out of London. I tried to forget him, but instead spent a lot of time sobbing in the bath and composing long quotation-loaded letters of renunciation in my head. An added irritation was that Jane was having a riproaring time, going out every night mostly with Rodney.

On the Monday evening, a fortnight later, she was getting ready for yet another date, trying to repair the ravages of a weekend of dissipation in front of the drawing-room mirror, while I sat slumped on the sofa, eating my way through a box of chocolates.

‘You’ll get spots,’ said Jane, squirting blue liquid into bloodshot eyes.

‘Do you know what I’m sitting on?’ I stormed.

‘W-what?’

‘The shelf. I am hurtling towards spinsterhood and middle age without even a whisker of a supertax husband on the horizon. D’you know how long it is since I’ve been out with a man?’

‘What about Mark?’

‘He’s not a man, he’s a stockbroker.’

I got up and wandered into the kitchen next door.

‘I doubt if anyone will ever ask me out again. I must face up to a future looking after cats in an attic. I’ve definitely decided to give Pendle up.’

‘Good,’ said Jane.

‘At least I would, if he’d have the decency to ring me up, so I could tell him so. I’ve got nothing to do. And no one to do nothing with. I think I shall buy a dog.’

I opened the fridge, and found a jar of pickled onions. I ate five.

‘If he asked you out, I bet you’d go,’ said Jane, trying to paint out the purple circles under her eyes.

‘I would not. Not if they stripped me naked and wild horses dragged me four times round the world, through the forests and across the burning deserts.’

I ate another pickled onion noisily. The telephone rang. I must have qualified for the Olympics, hurtling across the room. It was Pendle. He apologized — but not quite enough — for not ringing before, he’d been impossibly busy. Had I eaten? Would I like some dinner?

An hour later, my curls still wet from a hasty washing, I sat in Julie’s bar, lapping up a large glass of wine, and talking out of the corner of my mouth like a gangster, so as not to asphyxiate Pendle with the smell of onion. He looked even rougher than Jane, his face greyish-green with tiredness, his eyes heavy-lidded and red-rimmed. I hoped it was from poring over legal documents not loose-living. When I first saw him I wondered why I’d been eating my heart out for him. Then, as the wine curled down inside me, the old magic started working again.

‘Have you had any exciting cases?’ I asked.

‘Just routine stuff, but I’ve got a big case coming up tomorrow.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Defending a rapist.’

After the way he’d tried to pull me the night we’d met I was tempted to point out that he must have plenty of experience in that field. But it seemed a shame to rot up the evening so early on.

‘Will you get him off?’

‘The odds are against it. My client’s a man called Bobby Canfield. He’s sales manager of a small export-import firm in the City. He’s charged with raping,’ he lowered his voice slightly, ‘Fiona Graham.’

I whistled. ‘Rick Wetherby’s girlfriend? But she’s ravishing.’

‘Ravished you mean,’ said Pendle.

Rick Wetherby was a very successful racing driver, absolutely dripping with charisma and money. His affair with Fiona Graham had been well publicized in the papers.

‘Weren’t they about to get married?’ I said.

Pendle nodded. ‘Bobby Canfield was her boss. She claims he asked her to work late — the day before she was due to give up work actually. Rick Wetherby turned up unexpectedly to collect her from work, and found the door locked. She claims Canfield had raped her.’