Imogen

Chapter Seventeen

And that, thought Imogen dully, was that. In the simplest, if most painful, way possible, Cable had drawn Matt back to her side again. Once more she was the centre of attention. Nicky and James — mortified at having laughed at her last night — brought her huge bunches of black grapes. Yvonne, peeved at having missed a drama and furious with James for not coming to bed, was only too keen to take Cable’s part.

Cable, once her ankle was set, took every opportunity to wring every ounce of pathos out of her situation.

‘The terrible thing was,’ she told Yvonne, ‘that when I was in such agony all I could hear was drunken laughter.’

‘Disgusting!’ said Yvonne. ‘How could they have been so heartless?’

After last night’s heartlessness Cable had gone off Nicky again, but she insisted on Matt dancing attendance on her.

‘I think I could just manage a little soup. Could you possibly close the shutters a little? Is it too soon for another pain killer?’

She’s got us over a barrel, thought Imogen angrily, and then felt ashamed of herself. Matt, who was looking tired and on edge, drove everyone out of the bedroom in the end.

James, as a penance, was made to clean the car. Yvonne and Nicky went waterskiing. Rather half-heartedly they tried to persuade Imogen to join them. But she said she preferred to sunbathe. In fact, she just wanted to be alone.

As she lay on the beach she wondered if she’d ever been more unhappy in her life.

After yesterday’s day in bed her suntan had settled to a deep tawny brown, without any red in it. Her hair was streaked with gold. The beach was packed with week-end trippers. Man after man sidled up and asked her to come for a drink or a swim.

She was wondering how much longer she could stand it when a silky voice said, ‘Your sun lotion has spilled.’

‘Oh, go away,’ she snapped and looked up into the wicked brown face of Antoine de la Tour.

‘Antoine!’ she said, her face lighting up. ‘How lovely to see you.’

‘And you, ma petite.’ He sat down beside her, his eyes running over her body.

Imogen told him about Cable.

‘Serve her jolly well right,’ he said. ‘And now she mangle the commiseration out of everyone. I know ’er sort. Mimi has gone back to Paris,’ he added, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes. ‘I am poor boy on my own. ’Ow about the two of us spending the day together.’

Imogen drew circles in the sand, and decided it didn’t really matter what she did now.

‘I’d like to, Antoine. Can I just tell the others?’

But for reasons best known to herself, she didn’t go up and tell Matt where she was going. Instead she left a hastily scrawled note at the desk.

Hours later, she sat drinking brandy on the terrace of Antoine’s villa. The moon, grown slimmer since last night, was pouring white light on to the sea. Fireflies flickered in and out of the orange trees. The Milky Way rose like smoke from the dark hillside. Antoine sprawled in a hammock, smoking a cigar.

The day had passed in a dream. They had ridden along the sand for miles. They had swum and they had dined in a four-star restaurant.

Antoine had been a constantly amusing companion. But although he hadn’t lifted a finger in her direction, she knew he was playing a waiting game. And this time she was dealing with a professional, not a larky amateur like Gilmore. It was like spending the evening with a tiger.

He drained his glass of brandy, stubbed out his cigar and stood over her, very tall, very dark.

‘Let’s go inside,’ he said.

This isn’t really happening to me, thought Imogen, as she sat down on a huge sofa, covered in leopard skins. In about two minutes he’s going to seduce me and I don’t give a damn.

Antoine sat down beside her. He put a warm hand on her throat and slid it very slowly along her cheek to her ear and removed an earring.

‘Pretty, pretty girl,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to make love to you properly?’ He swiftly removed the other earring. ‘Improperly, I mean.’

Oh God, thought Imogen, it’s like being in the dentist’s waiting room! The hi-fi began to swell soft music. Antoine put her earrings on the table and began to stroke her hair.

‘You’re just too good to be true,

Can’t take my eyes off you,’ sang Andy Williams.

Imogen burst into tears.

‘Darling, ma petite, please don’t cry.’ She was sobbing in his arms. ‘It is Matt, is it not?’

She nodded miserably.

‘I thought that was the way the gale was blowing. And what does he feel?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all. He loves Cable. They fight like mad but you should have heard his voice when she hurt her ankle last night.’

Antoine nodded. ‘He is strange mixture. Always he joke and give impression ’e take nothing seriously except the horses and the betting. But beneath, he care about things very deeply. And even at Ox-fawd, he was always one-woman man. Though why ’e choose that ’orrible Cable, I can’t imagine. I go to Rome tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Come with me. I show you nice time. I make you forget.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

‘I give you part in my film.’

He picked up one of the leopard skins and draped it across her shoulders, and stood back with half-closed eyes.

‘You make beautiful slave girl.’

After that they drank a lot more brandy, and Antoine got out his photograph album and showed her stills from his films, and lots of snaps of himself and Matt at Oxford.

‘I think I ought be getting back,’ said Imogen.

‘Hélas,’ said Antoine, ruefully. ‘I’m not tired. I think I’ll drive as far as Milan tonight. Just wait while I pack a luggage.’

Outside the hotel, he took her in his arms and gave her a very thorough kissing.

‘Pretty girl,’ he said. ‘Tell Matthieu I behave with honour. The sheep in wolf’s suiting, I think. Are you sure you don’t want to come to Rome?’

Imogen shook her head. ‘No thank you.’

As she climbed the stairs, she was surprised to see a light on in her bedroom. She pushed open the door to find Matt lying on the bed. The ashtray on the bedside table was brimming with cigarette butts.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he said. It was the crack of the ringmaster’s lash.

‘Out with Antoine,’ she faltered. ‘I left a note.’

‘It’s nearly two o’clock,’ he said, getting to his feet and towering over her. His eyes were almost black.

‘Did you think I’d turned into a pumpkin too?’ she said with a nervous giggle.

‘You wrote that note ten hours ago. I just wondered how you filled in the time.’

‘We went riding.’

‘And?’

‘We swum and had dinner.’

‘And?’

‘We talked and talked.’

Matt lost his temper. It was as though a thunderstorm had broken over her head. Seizing her by the arms, his fingers biting into her flesh, he swung her round to face the mirror.

‘Just look at yourself!’

Her lipstick was smudged, her hair rumpled, the two top buttons of her dress had come undone. Hastily, she did them up.

‘He was just kissing me good-bye,’ she said.

‘Sure he was — ten hours after he’d kissed you hullo. And your dress is covered in fur. Talk yourself out of that if you can.’

A slow anger was beginning to smoulder inside her.

‘He draped a leopard skin over my shoulders. He wanted to see what I’d look like as a slave girl.’

‘Oh boy — what you lack in morals, you certainly make up for in imagination.’

‘We were talking. We were talking,’ said Imogen, her voice rising.

‘You’re repeating yourself, kid. You really want to lose it, don’t you? First you try Nicky, and he’s not having any, so you switch to me. Then you try Gilmore and then when that doesn’t come off you fall back on Antoine.’

‘I don’t,’ shouted Imogen.

‘You picked the wrong guy,’ he said viciously. ‘Antoine’ll have forgotten you by tomorrow.’

Imogen saw red. ‘Why won’t you listen?’

‘Because I’ve had enough of your blarney. Oh Matt, Nicky’s so mean to me. Oh, Matt, I’m so unhappy. Oh, Matt I’m such a constant nymph.’

‘Get out! Get out!’ shrieked Imogen. ‘It’s nothing to do with you what I do. Just because you’re tied to Cable’s apron strings, you can’t bear anyone else to have fun.’

‘Leave Cable out of this.’

But she was quite hysterical now. All the pent-up rage and jealousy of the past few days came pouring out of her. She didn’t know what she was saying — every vicious hurtful thing that came into her head.

Matt grabbed her wrist.

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’

‘Now who’s repeating himself?’ she said.

For a moment she thought he was going to hit her. In the long silence that followed, she could only hear his rapid breathing and the pounding of her heart. Then he turned round and went out of the room.

Imogen stood, stunned and terrified, trembling like a dog on Guy Fawkes Night. How could she have said all those terrible things? She collapsed into a chair and sat hunched up, her face in her hands. Then she gave a low moan. Her earrings were missing. They were pearls and belonged to her mother. They were still on the table at Antoine’s house. She’d have to go and get them.

Putting on a sweater she tiptoed downstairs. The moon was setting. Drunks were swaying in the streets. She had no difficulty finding the road.

But it was further than she thought. She passed two men who looked at her curiously and called out to her. But she ran stumbling on. At last there was Antoine’s house gleaming like an iced cake. No windows open at the front. She ran round to the back. If she lugged one of the magnolia tubs underneath and climbed on to it she could just reach. She was wriggling inside when everything round her was suddenly floodlit. Someone seized her by the ankle and pulled her to the ground. A man grabbed her arm and started gabbling at her in French. Struggling and shrieking, she was carried to a waiting car and thrown into the back, where another man pinned her arms behind her back.

She was being kidnapped. She’d never see Matt again, never see her family. She redoubled her struggles. It was only when the car drew up outside the police station that she realised she’d been arrested.

‘Je ne suis pas un burglar. Je suis friend of Antoine de la Tour,’ she said to the fat gendarme who was sitting behind a desk. But he just laughed and threw her into a cell.

At first she screamed and rattled the bars. But the fat gendarme came up and leered at her. He got out his keys. His meaning was quite plain.

Imogen shrunk away. ‘Oh non, non — please not that!’

‘Ferme ta gueule, encore.’

She sat on the narrow bed trying to stifle her sobs. No one would ever find her. She would be there for years like the Count of Monte Cristo. It was suffocatingly hot. She dripped with sweat, but was too shattered to think of taking off her sweater. The blazing row with Matt, the horror of her arrest were beginning to take effect. She couldn’t stop shaking.

The hours crawled by. Light was beginning to seep through the tiny window, when there was a commotion outside. She heard a familiar voice.

‘Matt!’ she shrieked.

He came straight over and took her hands through the bars.

‘Imogen, are you all right?’ His face was ashen.

‘Oh, please get me out of here. They think I’m a burglar. I was trying to climb into Antoine’s villa to get my earrings.’

She didn’t understand what Matt was saying to the fat gendarme. But he spoke very slowly and distinctly, waving his Press card back and forward, and the tone of his voice put a chill even into her heart. She was released in two minutes. She fell sobbing into his arms.

‘It’s all right, you’re safe. Everything’s all right.’

It was light in the streets as he drove back to the hotel.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘As soon as I cooled down, I realised I’d come on too strong. I came back to apologise and found you’d done a bunk. I toured the town for a bit, then I tried Antoine’s house and found the place seething with police and Alsatians. It was simple after that.’

She hung her head. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry. You seem to have spent your holiday getting me out of trouble.’

‘Skip it. I had no right to shout at you. My lousy Irish temper, I’m afraid. Yesterday was a bit trying. Cable — upstaging like nobody’s business. Nicky — sulking. James and Yvonne — at each other’s throats.’

‘Poor Matt,’ said Imogen. ‘You haven’t had much of a holiday, have you?’

Then she tried again. ‘We weren’t doing anything, Antoine and I. Truthfully we weren’t.’

‘It doesn’t matter. What you get up to is your own affair.’

‘But. .’

‘Let’s drop it, shall we?’

This weary acceptance was far worse than his earlier blinding rage.