Imogen

Chapter Fourteen

Imogen woke late the next morning to another blazing hot day. Through the open window she could see a few little white clouds ermining the serene morning-glory blue of the sky. She lay for a minute reflecting on the extraordinary events of the past forty-eight hours; first Matt transforming her in St Tropez, then meeting Antoine, who was pretty bizarre by any standards, then being threatened by Braganzi’s guards, Matt kissing her good-night and warning her off next morning, then her rescuing little Ricky, finding Nicky and Cable in bed and finally meeting Braganzi and the Duchess. Live a little, get some experience, Matt had said. Well, she’d certainly made a start. Yet, as she gazed at her smooth brown face in the mirror, she looked as young and as round-eyed as ever. She looked at the purple aster wilting in the diary and sighed.

She’d just got dressed and was wondering how Matt and Larry were getting on with Braganzi when there was a knock on the door. It was Tracey, wondering if she was ready to come down to the beach.

‘It’s awfully hot,’ she said, as they wandered along the front. ‘Even a T-shirt feels like a fur coat.’

‘Did Larry get off all right this morning?’

‘Yes, but he was feeling very poorly. I’ve never known a guy knock it back like he does. That Cable’s a crosspatch, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Imogen.

‘I dreamt all my teeth fell out last night,’ said Tracey. ‘Isn’t it supposed to mean something?’

‘Probably that you’re worried about all your teeth falling out,’ said Imogen.

She noticed that even the brownest and most blasé Frenchmen sat up, pulled in their stomachs and took notice as Tracey undulated past, her silver waterfall of hair glinting in the sun. This was going to make Cable even crosser.

They found Yvonne and James parked in the middle of the beach. Yvonne was grumbling away under the cardboard nose shield, looking like a malignant goose.

‘Hullo. Did you sleep well? I certainly didn’t. Far too hot. I couldn’t sleep a wink, and what’s more I had this terrible nightmare about a jellyfish, and when I woke up I found this huge mosquito bite, and then the water in the shower was cold this morning.’

‘How did you get on last night, Imogen?’ said James, who’d brightened perceptibly at the sight of them. ‘I was worried Braganzi might have turned you into a Pattie Hearst.’

‘It was all frightfully exciting,’ said Tracey, laying out a large green towel. ‘Go on, tell them, Imogen.’

Imogen’s account of the events of last night, however, was slightly overshadowed by the counter-attraction of Tracey stripping down to the bottom half of a leopardskin bikini.

James, who was oiling Yvonne’s back, stopped in mid-stroke, his eyes falling out with excitement. Every Frenchman within 200 yards appeared similarly affected.

‘Get on James,’ said Yvonne, chattering with disapproval. ‘And do lie down, Tracey, and don’t draw attention to yourself. Go on, Imogen. How had the Duchess done up the lounge?’

‘Oh, in pale blue silk,’ said Imogen, still not feeling her audience was really captive, particularly as Tracey started to oil herself all over.

‘That’ll keep out the ultra-violent rays,’ she said.

Twenty minutes later, by which time every man on the beach seemed to have made a detour past their little group to walk down to bathe, and then return flexing his muscles and dripping water all over them, Yvonne could bear it no longer. ‘You’ll burn, you know, Tracey. You really ought to cover yourself up, and those — er — bits burn much the worst.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Tracey, getting to her feet. ‘I think I’ll go and swim.’

‘Well, on your head be it,’ snapped Yvonne.

‘It’s not my ’ead it’ll be on,’ giggled Tracey, and she tripped off down to the sea, followed at a very indiscreet interval by a tidal wave of Frenchmen.

‘I’m going to swim too,’ said James and, before Yvonne could stop him, bounded off down the beach.

‘It’s disgusting the way she flaunts her bosoms,’ spluttered Yvonne.

‘Well, they rather flaunt themselves,’ said Imogen.

‘Such a bad example for James, particularly Larry turning up with her. I wondered if she knows he’s married.’

Imogen buried her face in the Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald. She had given up Tristram Shandy.

‘She’s bound to burn,’ grumbled Yvonne, adjusting her cardboard beak. ‘People simply don’t realise you have to take it slowly in this heat. That’s why I never burn.’ On she moaned, until Imogen was quite glad to see Cable and Nicky walking towards them. She supposed, with Matt gone off to see Braganzi, they’d taken the opportunity to spend a couple of hours in bed — and both got out of the wrong side of it, judging by the set sullen expressions on their faces.

‘Good morning,’ said Yvonne, cheering up at the sight of Cable’s sulkiness.

‘What’s good about it?’ snapped Cable, throwing her flattened lilo down on the ground. ‘Will you blow it up for me, Nicky?’

He shot her a look which plainly said — Blow the bloody thing up yourself — then thought better of it and crouched down by the lilo, muttering under his breath.

‘I hear Matt’s gone to see Braganzi,’ said Yvonne to Cable. ‘You must be delighted for him.’

‘I am not! A fine holiday I’m having, with him wasting his time running after silly stories. He’d gone by nine o’clock this morning, and that’ll be the last I’ll see of him today most likely. He’s bound to be up half the night writing the beastly thing. He even asked me to find him a typewriter. I ask you, in a god-forsaken place like this. It’s getting more and more like Margate,’ she added, glaring round the beach. Then, turning to Nicky, who’d nearly finished blowing up the lilo, ‘Why don’t we push off to St Trop for the day?’

‘No,’ said Nicky, suddenly catching sight of Tracey frolicking around in the shallows with James, ‘we haven’t got a car.’

‘Well, let’s hire one,’ said Cable imperiously, following Nicky’s glance.

‘Too much hassle,’ snapped Nicky, corking up the lilo and laying it at Cable’s feet. ‘And it’s far too hot to drive.’ Cable’s green eyes flashed.

It was getting too hot right here, thought Imogen. ‘I’m going to swim,’ she announced, setting off towards the sea.

‘So am I,’ said Nicky, hastily following her. ‘You’re looking very choice today, my darling. Let’s get out of the line of fire.’

‘We’re over here,’ Tracey called to them, waving frantically, her long blonde hair trailing in the green water like a mermaid’s. ‘It’s lovely. And how are you this morning, Nicky?’

‘Admiring you breasting the waves,’ said Nicky, ‘or rather waving the breasts.’

They all laughed, and splashed around. Then Nicky did his spectacular flashy crawl out to the raft and back.

‘Oh, I wish I could swim like that,’ said Tracey.

‘I’ll teach you,’ said Nicky. ‘Just rest your stomach on my hands, now move one arm like this, and put your head down.’

Tracey emerged giggling and spluttering. ‘I wouldn’t call that my tummy,’ she said.

‘Oh well, give or take a few inches,’ said Nicky, smiling down at her. Suddenly they stopped laughing and just gazed at each other. Oh my goodness, thought Imogen, nervous but pleased as well, what will Cable say?

‘Come on, Imogen,’ said James with a jolly laugh. ‘I’ll give you a swimming lesson too. Ouch,’ he squeaked as he stepped forward, ‘I feel a prick.’

‘Again,’ said Nicky.

And they all collapsed into giggles again, which was all in all not the sort of behaviour to improve either Cable’s or Yvonne’s tempers.

When they finally came out of the water, Yvonne promptly sent James off to the café to get her some lemonade.

‘Can you get me a vodka and tonic with ice and lemon?’ said Cable.

‘I’ll come and help you,’ said Nicky. ‘I could do with a snifter myself.’

‘Don’t forget to make the tonic Slimline,’ Cable called after him.

Yvonne turned her attention to Tracey, who was sitting up combing the tangles out of her hair.

‘My dear, have you known Larry long?’

‘Not very.’

‘Well, there’s something about him I feel you really ought to know. May I be frank with you? He is married.’

‘Oh, is he?’ said Tracey, quite unmoved. ‘Is she nice?’

‘Very, evidently,’ said Yvonne. ‘And they’ve been happily married for seventeen years.’

‘Well, I expect he needs a holiday from her then,’ said Tracey. ‘Then he’ll go home all the keener.’

‘But put yourself in his wife’s place,’ said Yvonne. ‘How d’you think she feels at this moment, abandoned in Islington with the children, while you sun yourself on the Côte d’Azure at her husband’s expense?’

A shadow fell over Imogen’s book. She looked up and jumped as she saw Larry, a camera hanging from his neck. He put his finger to his lips.

‘My dear,’ said Yvonne, warming to her subject, ‘don’t you realise how physical men are? It’s so easy for them to be led astray by the sight of a pretty face. If I encouraged them, I could have hundreds of men and husbands running after me, but it wouldn’t be fair. Men are so animal. It’s up to us girls to take a stand.’

Larry had crept round to Yvonne, and the next moment he was growling furiously into her ear, making her jump so much she fell off her lilo.

‘How dare you?’ she screamed.

‘Bow wow,’ growled Larry. ‘Bow wow. I’m an animal being led astray by a pretty face. Bow wow. That nose does suit you, I can’t think why you ever take it off,’ and picking up his camera he took a succession of quick snaps of her.

‘Put that thing away,’ squealed Yvonne, furiously tearing off her nose.

‘Well, stop brain-washing Tracey then. Not that there’s a lot of brain to wash.’

‘Hullo Larry,’ said Nicky, returning with James, a trayful of drinks and a cornet with two strawberry spheres of ice cream spilling out of the top. ‘How did you get on?’

‘Fantastic,’ said Larry, seizing Cable’s vodka and tonic and draining half of it in one gulp. ‘What a pad they’ve got up there! It’s a tragedy we couldn’t use colour.’

‘How was the Duchess?’ said James.

‘Sensational! Christ, what a beautiful woman. I’ve just been to Marseilles airport and put four rolls of film on a plane to London.’

‘Where’s Matt?’ said Cable.

‘Still up there, getting on like a château on fire. Braganzi’s being amazingly free and frank.’

‘He can afford to be if he’s going to see copy,’ snapped Cable. ‘You might leave me some of my drink, Gilmore.’

‘Oh, sorry, darling,’ said Larry, finishing it. ‘I’ll get us both another one in a minute.’

‘Ugh,’ said Yvonne. ‘You’re dripping ice cream all over me. Who’s it for?’

‘Tracey,’ said Nicky, handing it to her. ‘Somehow its structure reminded me of her.’

‘Do you mind?’ giggled Tracey. ‘Ta awfully, Nicky.’

‘I’m going to swim,’ said Cable, tucking her black hair into a yellow turban. ‘Are you coming, Nicky?’

For a minute they glared at each other, then he laughed and said all right, and, putting an arm round her shoulders, walked down to the beach with her.

‘I’m going too,’ said Yvonne, still obviously put out by Larry’s presence.

Larry took off his shirt and trousers. Underneath he was wearing black bathing trunks. He had a muscular well-shaped body, already very brown. The Man-Tan, as Tracey had pointed out, had striped his legs. He laughed when he caught Imogen staring at him.

‘It’s terribly difficult to put on over hairy legs,’ he said, sitting down beside her. ‘It’s a great story you got Matt, you know, and you certainly made a hit with Braganzi and the Duchess. They’ve been singing your praises all morning. Weren’t your ears burning?’

‘No, but my boobs are,’ interrupted Tracey, rolling over on her front and picking up Imogen’s book.

Larry looked out to sea at Cable and Nicky who had reached the raft, clambered on to it and were plainly having some kind of argument.

‘Cable’s being poisonous to that nice tennis player,’ he said in his slow voice. ‘He must be her latest.’

‘Oh, they’ve been flirting a bit,’ said James. ‘Jolly pretty girl, but a bit of a handful. Suppose I’m one of the lucky ones,’ he said, blowing bubbles into his drink with a straw. ‘Old Yvonne’s never really looked at another man.’

‘I’m one of the lucky ones too,’ drawled Gilmore. ‘Another man’s never looked at old Bambi.’

That’s not right, thought Imogen quickly; both Matt and Cable said she was very attractive.

Larry drained Cable’s drink. ‘Who’s for a refill?’ he said. ‘What are you having, James?’

‘Vodka and pineapple,’ said James. ‘I’m getting quite addicted to it. But for God’s sake don’t tell Yvonne.’

‘And what about you, Tracey?’

‘I’m all right for a bit,’ said Tracey, licking her ice cream, and still engrossed in Imogen’s Scott Fitzgerald. She glanced at the jacket. ‘She writes rather well, this Bodley Head. Has she written lots of other books?’

‘I’m starving,’ said Nicky as the beach emptied for lunch. ‘Let’s find a nice cool restaurant and have something to eat.’

‘And something to drink,’ said Larry.

On the way they called in the hotel, where Cable found a note for Matt.

‘Hooray,’ she said, opening it. ‘It’s from the Blaker-Harrises. There’s a big party on tonight. We’re all invited.’

‘Will it be smart?’ said Yvonne.

‘Pretty,’ said Cable. ‘Lots of Jet Set.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Larry. ‘I’m getting quite pixillated by high life. The Duchess this morning, the Blaker-Harrises tonight. I must go down to the Sieffs again.’

‘What does everyone want to eat?’ said James, as they sat down in a little restaurant hung with fishing nets and overlooking the sea. ‘Hands up for Salade Niçoise.’

‘I’d like an advocado pear,’ said Tracey.

‘I’d like an enormous vodka,’ said Larry.

He’s deliberately setting out to get drunk again, thought Imogen. A waiter shot past them bearing a plate of pink langoustines to a corner table, and she suddenly felt a stab of misery, remembering last time she’d eaten them with Matt in St Tropez. She wondered for the hundredth time how he was getting on.

They’d reached the coffee stage by the time he arrived. Cable and Yvonne were discussing what to wear that evening, Nicky was making discreet eyes at Tracey and talking to James about Forest Hills at the same time, Larry was ordering another bottle, when she saw him standing in the doorway watching them.

I can’t help it, she thought in misery, every time I see him, I want to bound forward like a dog and wag my tail and jump all over him.

‘Matt,’ shouted Larry, ‘bon journ main sewer. Qu-est-que ce going on up at Château Braganzi?’

Matt pulled up a chair and sat down between him and Cable.

‘Jesus, what a story,’ he said. ‘It’s so hot it frightens me.’

‘Well, have a drink, and then it won’t any more,’ said Larry.

Matt shook his head. ‘I’d better stay sober. Going to need all the wits I’ve got. I’ll have some coffee. Are you all right, darling?’ he said to Cable, then not giving her time to answer, turned to Imogen. ‘They both sent their love. They gave me a present for you, but I left it behind. I’ll bring it back when I go up this evening and show them the copy — if I ever get it together, that is.’

‘You’d better get it written this afternoon,’ said Cable. ‘The Blaker-Harrises are giving a party tonight.’

‘Well, they’ll manage without me,’ said Matt.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ snapped Cable. ‘It can’t take you that long. You’re not writing a novel.’

‘Bloody nearly. I’ve just talked to the paper. They’re going to hold the review front for it. You can’t churn that out in a couple of hours.’

‘There’ll be a lot of talent at the Blaker-Harrises,’ said Cable tauntingly. ‘Rod Stewart’s going to be there.’

‘Well, you won’t need me either.’ As soon as he finished the cup of coffee he got to his feet. ‘I’d better get started. Did you find me a typewriter?’

‘No,’ said Cable.

‘Christ,’ said Matt.

‘I did try, but I had a lot of things to do this morning,’ she added defensively.

‘I’ve no doubt one of them was human.’

‘What d’you mean?’ said Cable, momentarily nonplussed.

‘You should tidy up after your gentlemen friends. One of them left this on the bed this morning,’ said Matt, and there was a slither of gold as he dropped Nicky’s medallion on to Cable’s lap.

There was an awful pause, then Cable said, ‘Oh, that’s Nicky’s. The hot tap wasn’t working in his room, so he used our shower. Perhaps you’d have a word with Madame, seeing she’s a friend of yours.’

Matt looked at Nicky reflectively for a minute and then he laughed. ‘I would have thought a few cold showers would have done you all the good in the world, Nicky boy,’ and he was gone.

There was another long pause.

‘I’m going to the hairdresser this afternoon,’ said Yvonne.

‘So am I,’ said Cable.

Nicky turned to Tracey. ‘How would you like to come for a ride on a pedalo?’

Larry looked out of the window at the heat haze shimmering on the road out of the village: ‘I think it’s going to snow. I want another large vodka.’

Larry and Imogen and James went back to the beach and they taught her how to play poker, but before long the heat and the heavy lunch overcame James and he staggered back to the hotel for a siesta. Larry picked up his camera. ‘Let’s wander along the beach. I’d like to take some pictures of you.’

‘Oh, please no,’ stammered Imogen. ‘I don’t take a very good photograph.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Larry. ‘I’m the one who takes the good photographs.’

And certainly he was so quiet and gentle, and snapped away so unobtrusively, and flattered her so outrageously, that she was soon relaxing and posing in every position he suggested, on the rocks, paddling in the shallows, lounging against a breakwater.

‘Has anyone told you what a pretty girl you are?’ he said.

Imogen gazed at his thick black and grey hair, as he bent over the viewfinder.

‘Yes, one or two people,’ she said bitterly. ‘And then they rush off with other people, telling me I’m too inexperienced.’

He looked up. ‘Finding the musical beds confusing, are you? I must say we’re a pretty decadent lot for you to stumble on, except perhaps Yvonne, and she’s enough to put one off respectability for life, the frigid bitch. Turn your head slightly towards the sea, darling, but leave your eyes in the same place.’

‘But Matt doesn’t seem like that.’ The temptation to talk about him was too strong.

‘Matt’s different,’ said Larry, changing the film.

‘In what way?’ said Imogen, letting her hair fall over her face so Larry couldn’t see she was blushing. ‘I mean, when he gave Cable that medallion he must have known what she’d been up to with Nicky, but he didn’t seem in the least put out. He was far more annoyed with her not getting the typewriter.’

‘He completely switches off when he’s working. Until he’s got that piece finished, and it’s going to be a bugger — turn your head slightly to the left, darling — he won’t notice if Cable’s being laid end to end by all the frogs in Port-les-Pins.’

‘It must be awfully irritating for her. She’s so beautiful.’

‘She’s nothing special. Just a spoilt little bitch who doesn’t know what she wants.’

‘She wants Matt,’ said Imogen.

‘Et alia. But I’ve got a feeling each time she cheats on him, it worries him less — head up a bit, darling — and if he allows her enough rope, she’ll hang herself.’

Imogen giggled, and felt a bit better, and allowed herself a tiny dream about getting a job in the library on Matt’s newspaper and his taking her on a story, and then getting snowed up.

‘That’s enough work for one afternoon,’ said Larry. ‘Let’s go and have a drink.’ He screwed his eyes up to look out to sea. ‘Where’s that pedalo? I hope Nicky hasn’t sunk without Tracey.’

‘She is nice,’ said Imogen. ‘In fact it’s been so much better all round since you and she arrived last night. Will it be frightfully grand this evening?’

‘It’ll be ludicrous,’ said Larry, tucking his arm through hers. ‘But we might get a few laughs.’

They turned into the first bar on the front, and sat idly drinking and watching the people coming back from the beach.

‘That girl oughtn’t to wear a bikini,’ said Larry, as a fat brunette wobbled past them, ‘she ought to wear an overcoat.’

‘You should have seen the sensation Tracey caused on the beach this morning,’ said Imogen. ‘It was a bit like the Pied Piper drawing all the rats into the water when she went down to bathe.’

Larry didn’t answer, and, suddenly turning round, Imogen saw he’d gone as white as a sheet and was gazing mesmerised with horror at a beautiful woman with short light brown hair, and very high cheek bones, who was walking hand in hand with a much younger, athletic-looking man down to the sea.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Imogen.

He took a slug of his drink with a shaking hand.

‘Please tell me,’ she urged. ‘I know something’s wrong. You seem so — well — cheerful, but underneath I’m sure you’re not.’

For a minute he was silent, his thin face dark and bitter, and she could feel the struggle going on inside him. Then he took a deep breath and said:

‘That woman. For a minute I thought she was Bambi.’

‘But she’s in Islington.’

‘No she isn’t. She’s down here somewhere with her lover. She left me about a fortnight ago.’

‘Oh,’ said Imogen with embarrassment. ‘I can’t bear it. You poor thing.’

‘I didn’t want everyone pitying me. It was my fault. I suppose I neglected her. I’ve been working so hard the last two years just to survive and pay the school fees. Every night I’d come home and collapse in front of the telly with a double whisky, far too zonked out with my own problems to realise she was unhappy.’

‘But when did she start seeing this other man?’ asked Imogen.

‘Oh, last year sometime. Suddenly she started finding fault with everything I did. If the washing machine had broken it was my fault. Going home at night was like being parachuted into a fucking minefield. In retrospect I realise now she was picking fights with me to justify falling for this other bloke.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘Silly, really. She used to go out every Wednesday to pottery classes. I used to babysit. She was quite often late back, said she and the rest of the class had been to the pub. Then one day I met her pottery teacher in the High Street, and he said what a pity it was she didn’t come to classes any more when she was so talented. I went straight home and she admitted everything. In the old days I suppose I’d have blacked her eye, but I was buggered if I was going to be accused of being a male chauvinist pig, so I just got bombed out of my skull every night.’

‘And what about Tracey?’

‘She’s just window dressing. She’s a nice girl, but with me putting back the amount I’m putting back at the moment I’m not much use to her in the sack anyway. Best thing for her is to get off with Nicky. They’re well matched intellectually!’

He took her hand. ‘Look, I’m really sorry to dump on you like this.’

‘I like it,’ said Imogen. ‘I’ve felt so useless this holiday. But aren’t you likely to bump into Bambi any minute?’

He shrugged. ‘I know she and loverboy are staying somewhere on the Riviera. He’s frightfully rich, so it’s bound to be expensive.’

‘Does Matt know?’

‘Of course,’ said Larry. ‘He rumbled it last night.’

Back at the hotel they found Cable and Yvonne both with sleek newly washed hair drinking lemon tea with Nicky and James.

‘I suppose I’d better ring the paper to see if that film’s arrived,’ said Larry.

‘What time have we got to be on parade?’ asked Imogen.

‘Well it starts at eight, but I don’t think we need roll up much before nine or nine-thirty,’ said Yvonne.

‘Must make an entrance,’ muttered Nicky.

James looked at his watch. ‘Five o’clock. I’ve just got time to ring the office to see if everything’s OK.’

After that Nicky decided he ought to go and ring his agent, and Cable and Yvonne suddenly came to the conclusion they ought to ring theirs as well.

Imogen wondered if she ought to keep her end up by ringing the library, but what could she ask them? Had the Mayor returned The Hite Report at last? Was Lady Jacintha still clinging on to Dick Francis? She decided to go upstairs and wash her hair.

She met Cable coming downstairs looking bootfaced. ‘Matt’s lost his sense of humour. He simply can’t get his dreary piece together. He’s just bitten my head off simply because I asked for some change to telephone. I’ll have to borrow from Gilmore.’

Imogen turned around and went out to a nearby café and bought six cans of iced beer and a couple of large sandwiches made of French bread and garlic sausage. She could see Cable safely squawking in the telephone box as she went through reception, so she went upstairs and knocked timidly on Matt’s door.

There was no answer.

She knocked again.

‘Come in,’ shouted a voice. ‘What the bloody hell do you want this time?’

Inside she found him sitting on a chair that was too small, bashing away at a typewriter on a tiny table that shuddered and trembled under the pressure. His blue denim shirt was drenched with sweat; he looked like a giant trying to ride a Shetland pony. His shoulders were rigid with tension and exasperation; there were scrumpled-up bits of paper all over the floor.

‘Can’t you leave me alone for five minutes?’ he said through gritted teeth. Then he looked round, blinked and realised it was her.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.

‘I thought you might need something to eat — and drink — not now but later,’ she said nervously. ‘You didn’t have any lunch. You ought to eat.’

He looked slightly less bootfaced. ‘That was very kind of you, sweetheart.’

‘Is it going any better?’

‘Nope.’ He pushed his damp hair back from his forehead. ‘It’s going backwards. I’ve got a total brainfreeze. I can’t think how to do it. It’ll break soon, it’s got to. I’ve got to show it to Braganzi before midnight. The bugger is him having to see it; it’s like having to adapt de Sade for the parish mag.’

His eyes were just hollows in his suntanned face. He flexed his aching back. Suddenly he looked so tired and lost and defeated, she wanted to cradle his head against her and stroke all the tension out of him.

‘I wouldn’t bother about what they’re going to think,’ she said. ‘I’m sure if you get across how much they adore each other, and what a sacrifice they had to make, and how the relationship does work, and how he’s not just a cheap hood, they won’t mind what else you say. They’re just panicking that someone might write something that might prejudice her chances of seeing the children again. . but you know all that anyway. I used to get panicky about essays in exams,’ she said, tumbling over her words in her shyness.

Matt reached over and opened one of the cans of beer. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘So I used to pretend I wasn’t doing an essay at all, just writing a letter about the subject home to Juliet, trying to make it as amusing for her as possible.’

Matt grinned for the first time. ‘You think I should pretend I’m writing to Basil?’

Imogen giggled. ‘Well, maybe something of the sort.’

‘Are you going to the Blaker-Harrises?’ he said.

She nodded.

‘Well, for God’s sake wear a chastity belt and a bullet-proof vest. It’s bound to turn into an orgy.’

He turned back to his typewriter, dismissing her, but as she went out on to the landing, he thanked her once again.

She was just starting to wash her hair when Larry knocked on the door.

‘I’m going back to the hotel to have a bath and change,’ he said. ‘Tracey and I’ll come and pick you up about half eight. We don’t want to miss valuable drinking time.’

‘What shall I wear?’ she asked.

Gilmore went over to her wardrobe. ‘The pink trousers and that pale pink top,’ he said. ‘It’ll look stunning now you’re brown.’

‘Will it be smart enough?’ she asked, doubtfully.

‘Perfect. I want you to downstage the others. And remember no bra.’

What was the point of dressing up for a ball, she thought listlessly, when there was no chance of Prince Charming showing up?