Imogen

Chapter Eight

Imogen went down to breakfast next morning and found Nicky and Matt dirty and unshaven like a couple of bandits.

Matt smiled at her and asked her if she had slept well.

‘Marvellously,’ lied Imogen.

‘I’m glad someone did,’ said Nicky sulkily. ‘The Royal Philharmonic of tomcats started caterwauling around five o’clock.’

‘We abandoned all hope of sleep and invented tortures for Mrs Edgworth,’ said Matt.

At that moment Yvonne bustled in wearing a dress and a pink headscarf.

‘Good morning,’ she said briskly. Matt and Nicky looked at her stonily.

‘I didn’t sleep a wink,’ she grumbled. ‘What with the cats and the clocks striking. Do remember to book rooms at the back in future, Matt. And the beds were awful.’

‘Surprised you didn’t use James as a mattress,’ said Matt.

‘Why are you all done up like a dog’s dinner?’ said Nicky.

Yvonne’s lips tightened as she pulled on white gloves. ‘I’m off to Mass, where you all should be!’ she said.

The next stage of the journey was a disaster. Cable took so long to pack and get ready that she and Matt had another blazing row.

‘They ought to hold sheepdog trials for people like me,’ said Matt as he finally rounded the three of them up into the car. James and Yvonne had already gone on ahead. Nicky and Imogen sat in the front, Cable and Matt in the back, Matt reading a French Sunday paper, Cable looking stonily out of the window.

Nicky, whose turn it was to drive, was determined to notch up more miles an hour than Matt had yesterday, but Imogen spoilt everything by reading the map all wrong. The countryside they passed through had been so beautiful — old mills covered in reddening Virginia creeper, tender green poplar groves rising out of lush grass, and huge golden chateaux at the end of long shining lakes. Then suddenly she realised to her horror that she’d missed an important turning. As a result Nicky had to spend the next three-quarters of an hour disentangling them from the tentacles of a large industrial town. He got more and more angry, which was not helped by Imogen out of sheer nerves telling him he could overtake three times when he couldn’t, directing him slap into oncoming traffic.

Cutting short her stream of apologies, Nicky had turned on the car wireless. They could still get Radio 3. Patricia Hughes was announcing a performance of Handel’s Little Organ Concerto.

‘I didn’t know Handel had a small prick,’ drawled Cable.

Nicky grinned round at her. ‘Probably couldn’t Handel it,’ he said.

They both giggled and started swapping more anecdotes about mutual acquaintances, ostentatiously excluding Matt and Imogen.

Imogen wished she could amuse Nicky like that. But we’ve only got my family and Homer in common, she thought dolefully, and we can’t really talk about them for a fortnight. She noticed that each time they reached the end of a village, its name was signposted with a diagonal red line through it. She had a gloomy vision of Nicky taking a ruler and calmly drawing a red line through her name to signify the affair was over.

Later, tempers were not improved by no one being able to decide on the right picnic place, which at 110 miles an hour on the motorway was admittedly quite hard to find. James, who had been obliged to stop for Yvonne several times, was driving just behind them now. Imogen could see his eager pink face, with Yvonne beside him, wearing dark glasses, her mouth opening and shutting in a constant stream of chat.

Cable meanwhile was driving Matt insane by sitting with a red Michelin Guide in her hand, saying every time they came to a village, ‘There’s a fabulous restaurant here. It’d be so much nicer to stop here than have a rotten picnic.’

‘And five times more expensive,’ snapped Matt. ‘I’m buggered if I’m going to fork out 100 francs for something you won’t eat. I’m fed up with providing expensive left-overs for restaurant cats all over England and France.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Cable.

Eventually they stopped high up in the mountains, with a deep green valley falling away from them, richly dotted with herds of golden cattle, and russet farm houses. Despite the height it was appallingly hot. A heat haze danced above the rocks. Cheese, pâté and garlic sausage were soon sweating and melting in the blazing sun, ham curled and turned brown, the acid red wine was as warm as tea.

Yvonne perched on a rock, still looking as though she’d been wrapped in tissue paper, daintily eating cottage cheese with a pink plastic spoon, and grumbling about the insects.

‘Doesn’t the silly cow remind you of little Miss Muffet?’ said Matt to Imogen. ‘Pity a big spider can’t roll up and put the frighteners on her for good.’

Nicky, having wolfed a couple of pieces of bread and pâté, had annexed a bottle of wine, and was further punishing Imogen by dancing attendance on Cable. Lying on the grass beside her, he alternately fed her swigs of wine from the same paper cup, or dropped green grapes into her mouth. Occasionally, after shooting a venomous glance in Matt’s direction, Cable would whisper something in his ear, sending them both into fits of laughter.

Yvonne looked disapproving, and unpacked yet another polythene bag of carrot matchsticks. Ignoring them both, Matt stretched out and fell asleep among the wild flowers like Ferdinand the Bull. Imogen, incapable of such sang-froid, miserably ate her way through five pieces of bread and garlic sausage and then felt sick.

James had positioned himself so he could look up Cable’s skirt. As she writhed on the ground with Nicky, her pink dress rode up further and further to reveal black broderie anglaise bikini pants, threaded with scarlet ribbon.

Suddenly a car drew up on the road below and three Frenchmen got out, quite unselfconsciously unzipped their flies and relieved themselves against the grass verge.

‘How disgusting,’ spluttered Yvonne, going scarlet with disapproval.

‘How lovely and uninhibited,’ said Cable, sitting up and putting a cigarette in her mouth. In a flash James’s lighter was out, the flame shooting into the air, nearly singeing Cable’s hair and eyelashes.

‘Overeager, like its master,’ said Nicky pointedly.

James went slightly pink and helped himself and Imogen to more wine.

‘That’s enough, Jumbo,’ snapped Yvonne. ‘You know what I feel about drinking and driving.’

She got off the rock and started to tidy up the picnic, exclaiming over the ants that had already crawled into the pâté, neatly tidying the rubbish into a polythene bag and stacking it in the boot.

‘Don’t work so hard,’ said Cable lazily. ‘You’re making us feel so guilty.’

‘Someone’s got to do it,’ said Yvonne. ‘I, for one, like things ship-shape.’

Imogen got back into the car, wincing as the sun-baked seat burnt her skin.

‘Everyone’s awfully prickly today,’ she said to Matt.

‘That’s why it’s called a holly day,’ said Matt.

And now it was late afternoon. Imogen sat in the back feeling car sick, homesick, cooped up and uncertain where life was taking her. After the long hours of travelling, she felt sluggish and weighed down, as though all the pieces of bread she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours were lying in a leaden lump at the bottom of her stomach.

And now the shadows were lengthening and Matt was driving again, sweat darkening his shirt, an old panama hat pulled over his nose to keep his dark blond mane out of his eyes. All the windows were open; the heat was coming in great waves; the windscreen was coated with dead flies.

The road was curling now through pine woods and burning red rock, the crickets were going like rattles, the air was getting clearer and clearer. Up and up they went, round and round, until it seemed their car would touch the sky. Then, suddenly, like a sheet of metal glinting in the evening sun, sparkled the Mediterranean.

Imogen caught her breath. Cable got out her make-up case. Imogen wished she had some of those little cleansing pads which Cable and Yvonne whipped out on every occsion. Even her flannel was packed in her suitcase in the boot.

‘There’s Port-les-Pins,’ said Matt.

Imogen craned her neck. Down below, the hill was thick with little white villas with red roofs and green shutters. Shops, cafés, casinos and pale pastel houses jostled for position along the sea front. A fleet of fishing boats and yachts tossed in the harbour. Some tiny fishing village, thought Imogen.

Another shock awaited her. She had always believed the French were an ugly race, dumpy with incipient moustaches. But as they drove along the front, she had never seen so many beautiful girls, trailing back from the beach, with their waist-length hair, long limbs and brown faces. No wonder Cable had spent three-quarters of an hour on her face. No wonder Nicky looked like a small boy let loose in a sweet shop.

Their hotel, La Reconnaissance, was at the far end of the front. Drying bathing dresses and towels hung from every balcony. The fat Madame, accompanied by an even fatter poodle, came waddling out gabbling with excitement and kissed Matt on both cheeks. Imogen was relieved to discover that she and Nicky had a room each.

Madame combined respectability with avarice, Matt explained in English as they climbed the red-tiled staircase. She got more money for two single rooms than a double, but as long as appearances were kept up, she didn’t mind who slipped into whose room after lights out.

Imogen’s room was extremely small with a large single bed, no soap, no coat-hangers, no drawer space and the tiniest of face towels. A piece of plastic holly was tucked behind the only picture. Five pink, lurex bulrushes stood in a vase beside the bed. If she leaned right out of the window she could just see the sea.

She sat down overwhelmed by another desperate wave of homesickness. Her hair felt stiff with dust, her body ached with the inactivity of the long day’s drive. Outside, Yvonne was complaining bitterly that baths cost 10 francs each and Cable was bullying Matt to go downstairs and get the plug changed on her Carmen rollers. I must pull myself together, thought Imogen. She was on holiday, after all, and she must try and enjoy herself. She washed as best she could in stone cold water and put on one of her new voluminous orange kaftans. She wore stockings and high-heeled shoes to make herself look taller and slimmer and took a lot of trouble over her face, before joining the others in the bar on the front.

Immediately she was conscious of wearing quite the wrong clothes. Most people were in trousers and shirts in soft pastel shades. Girls in dresses wore them fitted or tightly belted, with Greek sandals on their bare feet. She was aware of brown faces laughing at her all around.

Nicky looked at the kaftan in ill-concealed disapproval.

‘Expecting a baby, darling?’ said Cable in her cool, clear voice.

‘She looks lovely,’ said Matt, who was filling in the brown identification forms.

He patted the chair beside him. ‘Come and sit here, baby, and let me take down your particulars. Is your room all right?’

‘Oh yes, it’s fine,’ she said gratefully.

‘Ours isn’t,’ said Yvonne, ‘I haven’t got a bedside lamp.’

‘With all those raw carrots you eat,’ said Matt, ‘I would have thought you could see in the dark.’

‘It is rather a dump,’ snapped Yvonne. ‘I had expected something a bit better — like that for instance.’ She waved in the direction of the huge white Plaza Hotel which, with its red and white umbrellas, dominated the bay.

‘You can stay there if you’re prepared not to eat or go out in the evening,’ said Matt. ‘One night at the Plaza’ll cost you as much as a fortnight at La Reconnaissance.’

‘Well perhaps not the Plaza,’ conceded Yvonne, ‘but there must be somewhere a little less primitive.’

Matt went on filling in Imogen’s form. For her occupation he put bibliothecaire which sounded very grand.

‘Madame was good to Matt in the old days,’ said Cable defensively.

‘When I was an undergraduate she let me stay for practically nothing,’ said Matt. ‘She used to be in the Resistance. I’m sure she’ll lend you her revolver if it comes to a shoot out with the cockroaches.’

Imogen gazed at the Prussian blue sea which glittered and sparkled in the sinking sun.

‘What’s the French for “Model”?’ said James trying to bridge an awkward silence and fill in Yvonne’s form at the same time.

‘Catin,’ said Matt.

Cable stifled a giggle and James solemnly wrote it down.

A party of Germans sat down at the next table and started banging the table for waitresses.

‘This place is awfully touristy,’ grumbled Yvonne.

‘Well, you’re a tourist, aren’t you?’ said Matt.

A slim brunette went by in a lace shirt with the tails tied under the bosom to reveal a beautiful brown midriff.

‘Everyone seems to be wearing those this year,’ said Cable. ‘I must get one.’

‘What does catin really mean?’ said Imogen to Nicky later, as they strolled along the front.

‘Prostitute,’ said Nicky.

They had dinner in a restaurant overhung with vines. Below, the sea was a wash of blue shadow, sparked by the lights of the fishing boats putting out for the night’s catch. Everyone was hungry and they ate garlicky fish soup and cassoulet. The wine flowed freely. Even Yvonne seemed more cheerful when suddenly she put on her wolf in Red Riding Hood smile and turned to Matt.

‘Isn’t it time you and Cable named the day?’

Everyone stopped talking. Matt looked at Yvonne steadily and said, ‘What day?’

She waved a playful finger at him. ‘Now don’t be evasive. You and Cable have been going out for nearly two years now. It’s only fair to make an honest woman out of her.’

Cable flushed angrily. ‘It’s none of your damn business, Yvonne.’

‘Darling — I was only interested in your welfare.’

Matt took Cable’s hand and squeezed it. Then he turned to Yvonne and said softly, ‘Let’s get three things straight. First, I have Cable’s welfare very much at heart; secondly, I agree with her, it’s none of your damn business; and thirdly, you’ve got butter on your chin.’

There was a frozen pause, then everyone burst out laughing, except Yvonne who went as red as her hair with rage.

Nicky yawned. ‘God, I’m so tired I could sleep on a clothes line.’

Matt was gently stroking Cable’s cheek. ‘Early bed, I think, darling, don’t you?’

She looked at him and nodded gratefully. He’s a nice man, thought Imogen, a really nice man. She was beginning to feel sick. Perhaps that garlic soup hadn’t been such a good idea. Nicky was eyeing a sumptuous blonde at the next table.

‘Don’t forget to sleep on the right side of the bed,’ said Cable mockingly to Imogen as she climbed the stairs to her room. She felt sicker and sicker. White-faced, white-bodied, she looked at herself in the mirror. Oh, fat, white woman who nobody loves, she thought sadly, as she put on her nightdress and jumped into bed.

There was a knock on the door. It was Nicky in a violet dressing-gown and nothing underneath. His black curls fell becomingly, the gold medallions jangled on his chest, aftershave lotion fought with the sweet scent of deodorant. Imogen’s heart turned over. She had never seen such a beautiful man. If only he weren’t going round and round.

‘Hullo, darling,’ he said huskily, sitting down on the bed. ‘Thank God we’re alone at last. I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about you.’

Or the tomcats or the clocks, thought Imogen. He was kissing her now and his hands started to rove over her body. He put his tongue in her ear, and Imogen, who couldn’t remember whether she’d washed her ears that morning, wriggled away, simulating uncontrollable passion.

Nicky laughed. ‘Underneath the surface, you’re a hot little thing.’

Great waves of nausea were sweeping over her.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s have that stupid nightdress off.’

‘Nicky, I feel sick,’ she said, leaping out of bed and rushing to the bidet.

‘You can’t be sick here,’ said Nicky in horror.

‘Can’t I?’ said Imogen, and was. And all night long, like the Gadarene swine, she thundered down the passage to the black hellhole of a lavatory.

Nicky, foiled yet again, went back to his room in an extremely bad temper.