Rosamunde Pilcher - September

She ripped the envelope with her thumb and took out the card.

She said, "Goodness me."

"What is it?"

"An invitation to the ball. 'You shall go to the ball,' said the Fairy Godmother to Cinderella."

Noel reached out and took it from her.

"Who's Mrs. Angus Steynton?"

"They live near us in Scotland. About ten miles away."

"And who's Katy?"

"Their daughter, of course. She works in London. You've maybe met her…" Alexa thought about this and then changed her mind. "No. I don't think you would have. She's inclined to go round with young men in the Guards… lots of race meetings."

"Sixteenth of September. Are you going to go?"

"I shouldn't think so."

"Why not?"

"Because 1 wouldn't want to go without you."

"I haven't been invited."

"I know."

"Will you say, 'I shall come if I can bring my lover with me'?"

"Nobody knows I've got a lover."

"You still haven't told your family that I've moved in with you?"

"Not yet."

"Any particular reason?"

"Oh, Noel… I don't know." But she did know. She wanted to keep it all to herself. With Noel, she inhabited a secret magic world of love and discovery, and she was afraid that if she let anybody in from the outside, then it would all dissolve and somehow be spoilt.

As well… and this was a pathetic admission… she lacked any form of moral courage. She was twenty-one but that didn't help, because she still felt, inside, about fifteen, and as anxious to please as she had ever been. The thought of possible family reactions filled her with agonized distress. She imagined her father's disapproval, Vi's horrified astonishment, and Virginia's concern. Then, the questions.

But who is he? Where did you meet him? You've been living together? At Ovington Street? But why is this the first we've heard of it? What does he do? What is his name?

And Edie. Lady Cheriton must be turning in her grave.

It wasn't that they wouldn't understand. It wasn't that they were strait-laced or hypocritical in any way. Nor was it that they didn't all love Alexa-she couldn't bear any of them to be upset.

She drank some tea.

Noel said, "You're not a little girl any longer."

"I know I'm not. I'm adult. I just wish I wasn't such a wet adult."

"Are you ashamed of our sinful cohabitation?"

"I'm not ashamed of anything. It's just… the family. I don't like hurting them."

"My sweet, they'll be much more hurt if they hear about us before you've got around to telling them."

Alexa knew that this was true. "But how could they find out?" she asked him.

"This is London. Everybody talks. I'm astonished your father hasn't got the buzz already. Take my advice and be a brave girl." He gave her his empty mug and a swift kiss on the cheek. Reaching for his bathrobe, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. "And then you can write to Mrs. Stiffden, or whatever her name is, and say yes, please, you'd love to come to the ball, and you're bringing Prince Charming with you."

Despite herself, Alexa smiled. "Would you come?"

"Probably not. Tribal dances are Scarcely my scene." And with that he took himself off to the bathroom. Almost at once Alexa heard the gushing of the shower.

So what was all the fuss about? Alexa picked up the invitation again, and frowned at it. I wish you'd never come, she told it. You've just stirred up a lot of trouble.

Monday the Twenty-second

That August, the entire island simmered in an unprecedented heat wave. The mornings started hot, and by midday the temperatures had risen to unbearable heights, driving any person with sense indoors for the afternoon, to loll breathless upon a bed, or sleep on some shady terrace. The old town, up in the hills, quiet and shuttered, slumbered through the hours of siesta. The streets were empty and the shops closed.

But, down in the port, it was a different story. There were too many people about, and too much money being spent, to respect this time-honoured custom. The tourists did not want to know about siestas. They did not want to waste a moment of their costly holiday in sleeping. And the day visitors had nowhere to go. So, instead, they sat about in droves, red and perspiring, in the pavement cafes; or wandered aimlessly in air-conditioned gift arcades. The beach was littered with palm-thatch umbrellas and half-naked, kippering bodies, and the Marina packed with seagoing craft of every description. Only the boat people seemed to know what was good for them. Usually bustling with activity, the yachts and launches dipped lazily in the swell of the oily water, and in the shade of canvas awnings supine bodies, brown as mahogany, lay about on the decks, as though already dead.

Pandora awoke late. She had tossed and turned her way through the night and finally, at four in the morning, taken a sleeping pill and fallen at last into a heavy, dream-troubled sleep. She would have slept on but the sound of Seraphina clattering away in the kitchen disturbed her. The clatter shattered the dream, and after a little, reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

The dream had been of rain, and brown rivers, and cold wet scents, and the sound of wind. Of deep lochs and dark hills with boggy paths leading to their snow-capped summits. But most important was the rain. Not falling straight, not thunderous and tropical as it was when it fell here, but gentle and misty. Rolling in on clouds, insidious as smoke…

She stirred. The images dissolved, were gone. Why should she dream of Scotland? Why, after all these years, did those old chilly memories come back to tug at her sleeve? Perhaps it was the heat of this cruel August, the endless days of relentless sunshine, the dust and the dryness, the hard-edged black shadows of noon. One yearned for that gentle, scented mist.

She turned her head on the pillow and saw, beyond the sliding glass doors that had stood open all night, the balustrade of the terrace, the glaring brilliance of geraniums, the sky. Blue, cloudless, already brazefi with heat.

She propped herself up on an elbow and reached across the wide empty bed to the bedside table and her watch. Nine o'clock. More racket from the kitchen. The sound of the dishwasher churning. Seraphina was making her presence heard. And if she was here, that meant that Mario-her husband and Pandora's gardener-was already scratching away with his archaic hoe in the garden. Which precluded all possibilities of an early skinny-dip. Mario and Seraphina lived in the old town and came to work each morning on Mario's moped, roaring full throttle up the hill. Mario drove this noisy brute of a contraption with Seraphina perched behind him, riding, modestly, side-saddle, and with her strong brown arms wrapped around his waist. It was a wonder that the daily assault of din that proclaimed their arrival had not woken Pandora before this, but then the sleeping pills were very strong.

It was too hot to go on lying in this rumpled, messy bed. She had been here long enough. Pandora threw aside the thin sheet and, barefoot and naked, crossed the wide expanse of marbled floor and went into her bathroom. She collected her bikini-no more than two scraps of knotted handkerchief-climbed into it, and then walked back through her bedroom, out onto the terrace, and down the steps that led to the swimming pool.

She dived. It was cool, but not cool enough for true refreshment. She swam. She thought of diving into the loch at Croy and coming up screaming with agony because the cold bit into every painful pore of one's body; it was a numbing cold that took all breath away. How could she have swum in what was virtually snow-water? How could she and Archie and all the rest of them have indulged in such masochistic pleasures? But what fun it had been. And then coming out, and struggling damply into warm sweaters, and lighting a fire on the pebbly shore of the loch, and cooking the best trout in the world over the smoky embers. Trout, ever since, had never tasted so good as at those impromptu camp-fire meals.