Imogen

Chapter Eighteen

As soon as she got back to the hotel she went to bed, lying for a long time in a state of coma before she fell asleep. When she woke it was afternoon.

Listlessly, she dressed and wandered along the passage to Cable’s room. Chaos met her eyes. Clothes of every colour of the rainbow littered the bed. Suitcases lay all over the floor.

‘What are you doing?’ said Imogen, aghast.

‘What does it look as though I’m doing?’ snapped Cable. ‘Packing, of course. Since you’re here, you may as well help me. Get those dresses out of the wardrobe — take the coat-hangers too. This beastly hotel can afford them — and put them in this case. My foot is hurting so much, I can’t tell you.’

She sat down on the bed.

‘But where are you going?’ said Imogen.

Cable gave one of her sly, malicious smiles.

‘All roads lead to Rome, darling. But I’m going by way of Milan.’

Imogen looked horrified. ‘But that’s where Antoine is.’

‘Right first time,’ said Cable approvingly. ‘You’re getting perceptive in your old age. Rebel’s collecting me in half-an-hour.’

‘But I thought you loathed Antoine.’

‘Did you now? Well, I’m entitled to change my mind. I never said he wasn’t attractive. And he’s mad for me, which is half the battle. He telephoned this morning, absolutely gibbering, my dear, and said ever since he met me on Wednesday he couldn’t get me out of his mind. He knew I wasn’t happy with Matt. If I came to Rome, he’d give me the best time in the world. Don’t forget those bikinis hanging from the window. He’s going to give me a part in his film — as a slave girl.’

‘And what about Matt?’

Cable’s face hardened. ‘Don’t talk to me about Matt,’ she said stonily. ‘I’m through with him for good. If anyone deserves his come-uppance, it’s that guy.’

‘But what’s he done?’ said Imogen.

‘He’s impossible, that’s what. He was in the most vile temper all yesterday, quite unsympathetic about my foot which, incidentally, is absolute agony. Then he swans off for most of the night. God knows what he was up to — that blasted Casino, I suppose. Then he comes in at some ungodly hour this morning, just as I’d taken two more sleeping pills. Put all those bottles in my make-up case, darling. It’s that trunk over there. Where was I?’

‘You’d just taken some pills.’

‘So I had. Well, I was very uptight, so I began to tell him a few home-truths. Very gently, mind you. And do you know what he said?’

Imogen shook her head.

‘He said, “Why don’t you shut up about your bloody foot. It would have been better for everyone if you’d broken your jaw.”’

Imogen buried her face in the bottles to hide a smile.

‘And then without giving me a chance to retaliate, he charges out of the room to watch some forest fire that’s broken out in the mountains.’

There was a knock on the door. Cable jumped nervously.

‘Answer it, will you?’ she said.

A sleek black face appeared round the door. It was Rebel.

‘Oh, hullo,’ said Cable with relief. ‘I won’t be long. Could you take these cases down? I’m afraid you’ll have to make two journeys.’

As soon as Rebel had left the room Imogen pleaded, ‘You can’t leave Matt like this. OK — so he blew his top. But he’ll calm down. He’s worth a million of Antoine. Antoine’s just a lovely playboy.’

‘And I’m a lovely playgirl,’ said Cable, wriggling into a green dress that looked faintly familiar.

‘But Matt really loves you.’ Imogen was almost in tears.

‘He shows it in a most mysterious way,’ said Cable.

‘But he’ll be shattered.’

‘Won’t he just!’ said Cable gleefully. ‘Men hate it so much more when you take off with one of their mates. Well, if he loves me so much, he can come and get me. And this time it’ll be marriage or nothing.’

She got an envelope out of the chest of drawers.

‘I’ve written him this letter telling him everything,’ she said, spraying it with scent. ‘Will you be sure to give it him?’

Rebel appeared at the door. ‘You can carry me down this time, darling,’ said Cable.

Rebel picked her up.

‘Lovely,’ said Cable, feeling his muscles and smiling up at him. ‘I don’t think we’ll bother to go as far as Milan.’

Fear and desolation crept slowly through Imogen’s stomach like a cold wind. She went downstairs and ordered a Coke. Madame came waddling over in carpet slippers.

‘’Ave you seen Monsieur O’Connor?’ she asked, putting the Coke tin and a glass on the table.

Imogen explained about the forest fire.

‘Ah,’ said Madame. ‘Well, I ’ave his plane tickets.’

‘Tickets?’ said Imogen slowly.

It was as though another layer of ice was being placed over her heart.

Madame nodded despondently. ‘Tonight he go. I think ’e meant to take that one back to London for her foot, but she seems to ’ave gone already. Always Monsieur O’Connor stay for two week. But this year, I think he not happy.’

Mindlessly picking up her Coke tin, Imogen left Madame in full spate and went out into the street. She was numb with horror. It was like some terrible dream. To be suddenly faced with life without Matt. A grey drab expanse stretching to infinity. Tears streaming down her face. Oblivious of the people in the street, she walked blindly to the far end of the cove, and stood there for a long time, looking at the sea frothing like ginger beer on the sand.

A car was hooting insistently. Blasted French, why did they always drive on their horns.

‘Imogen,’ yelled a voice.

She looked up as the white Mercedes drew alongside her.

Matt leant across.

‘Jump in,’ he said. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

In a daze she got in.

He looked at her closely. ‘Poor little love, you look done in.’

His face and hands were grimy, and his eyes bloodshot, but otherwise he seemed in excellent spirits. But not for long, thought Imogen. Cable’s letter was burning a hole in her pocket.

As he swung the car off the coast road and headed for the mountains, she said, ‘Matt, I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘And there’s something,’ he said, taking the Coke tin from her and helping himself to a great swig of it, ‘that I must tell you. In spite of her hundred per cent guaranteed sun protection lotion, Yvonne is peeling like a New York tickertape welcome. It’s coming off her in festoons.’

Imogen couldn’t help giggling.

‘How was the fire?’ she asked.

‘Raging merrily, but they expect a storm tonight, so no one’s very worried about it. I got a good story, though. Port-les-Pins fire brigade spent all morning bravely fighting the fire, but come lunchtime, like all good Frogs, they downed tools and returned to the town. When they got back three hours later, they found their fire engine burnt to a frazzle.’ His shoulders shook.

She’d never seen him so happy — it wrung her heart. Oh damn, damn Cable.

They drove past vineyards and olive groves shimmering like tinfoil, past Braganzi’s fortress and up into the mountains. When they’d gone as far up as the car could go, Matt got out.

‘Come on,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her up a steep path to the top.

Below them stretched a mountainous waste of Old Testament country. The sun moved in and out of the clouds lighting up village and farms. To the right like a judgement on an ungodly people, a great furnace was licking over the hillside. Bits of ash fluttered like snowflakes through the air.

‘It’s beautiful,’ breathed Imogen.

‘I always make a pilgrimage up here every year,’ he said. ‘It’s sort of insurance that I’ll come back again.’

The highest rock was smothered in undergrowth. Matt pulled away the brambles and the wild lavender to reveal a plaque with a list of names on it.

‘Who were they?’ asked Imogen.

‘The local resistance fighters in the last war,’ he said. ‘I ought to add your name, oughtn’t I?’

‘My name?’ she said in a stifled voice.

‘Yes, sweetheart, for resisting the advances of three of the most formidable wolves in the business. Not that you were exactly resisting Larry the other night.’

She had a feeling he was laughing at her again.

‘What are you talking about?’ she muttered.

He sat down in a hollow in the rocks and pulled her down beside him.

‘Matt,’ she said desperately, ‘there’s something I must tell you.’

‘Tell away then.’ He put his hand under her hair and was gently stroking the back of her neck.

‘Don’t do that,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve got a letter for you — from Cable.’ She pulled it out of her pocket and almost flung it at him.

He picked it up, studied it lazily and tore it into little pieces which the wind scattered in an instant.

‘Now arrest me for being a litter-bug,’ he said. ‘I know what’s in that letter. I don’t even have to open it. Cable, driven to distraction by my appalling behaviour and lack of consideration, has pushed off to Rome with Antoine.’

Imogen looked at him in bewilderment — a faint hope flickering inside her.

‘I tried not to get uptight about you and Antoine,’ he said. ‘But in the end I knew I’d go crazy if I didn’t have it out with him. So I rang Milan. He gave me a run-down on last night, corroborating your story word for word. He said you were enchanting, but entirely preoccupied with someone else.’

Imogen blushed.

‘I’m sorry I was so bloody to you last night, little one. It’s that Coleridge thing about being wroth with one we love working like madness in the brain. But I’m glad it happened. It showed me how hung up on you I’d got without realising it. I never felt a fraction of that white-hot murderous rage when I caught Cable being unfaithful.’

His voice was as soft as an Irish mist, and as he took her face in his hands, they smelt of wood smoke and wild lavender.

‘Funny little Imogen. You were like a little girl, running after the rest of us crying, “Wait for me,”’ and he bent his head and kissed her very gently. Next moment she flung her arms round his neck.

‘Oh, Matt! Oh, Matt!’

Much later she said, ‘But I don’t understand. I thought Antoine and Cable loathed each other?’

‘Did they? Animosity as intense as that often means the other thing. Neither will trust the other farther than they can throw them, which seems a good basis for a relationship.’

‘But she’s expecting you to follow her.’

‘She’s got a long wait in front of her then. If you keep turning a light switch on and off, on and off, like Cable did, the fuse blows in the end. There’s nothing left.’

A suspicion crossed Imogen’s mind. ‘Matt, you didn’t put Antoine up to it?’

He grinned. ‘Not exactly. Let’s say I planted the seed.’

‘And what about Nicky?’

‘Rumour has it that Nicky has been casting covetous eyes at some nymphette at the waterskiing school. And Tracey’s due back this evening, so I don’t think he’ll be inconsolable for very long. Which leaves you and me.’

Imogen looked down at her hands. ‘But you’re going back?’

His face became serious. ‘I’ve got to, darling. The Foreign Desk rang me this morning. This business in Peru’s going to explode at any moment. They want me to fly out tomorrow.’

Imogen went pale. ‘But you might get hurt.’

‘Not I. Matt the cat with nine lives. Besides I’ve got something to come home for now, haven’t I? I got a ticket for you too. I’m sorry to rot up your holiday, but I can’t leave you here alone at the mercy of every passing wolf and gendarme.’

‘You’re taking me back to London with you?’ she asked incredulously. Everything was crowding in on her. She couldn’t take so much happiness at once.

Matt picked up the Coke tin that had fallen on to the ground and wrenched off the silver ring used to open it.

‘You can go home to Yorkshire if you like. Or better still,’ he looked at her under drooping lashes, ‘you can shack up in my flat and look after Basil and make up my mind where you want to go for a honeymoon.’

Imogen opened her mouth and shut it again.

‘It’s all right. Don’t rush into anything. Kick the idea round for a bit. You might not like being hitched to a journalist. It’s a rough life. But I warn you, I don’t give up easily. Anyway, people keep telling me I ought to hang on to you — Gilmore, Antoine, the Duchess, Braganzi, Tracey. You’ve got a lot of fans, sweetheart.’

‘I have?’ she said in amazement.

‘Yep, and I’m the biggest one.’

He picked up her left hand and slid the Coca-Cola ring on to her wedding-ring finger. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

‘I love you,’ he said softly, ‘because you’re gentle and good, and because I know you love me.’

He looked at his watch. ‘Christ. We’d better step on it, if we’re going to catch that plane.’

Imogen grumbled and snuggled up to him, wanting to be kissed some more.

‘Come on,’ said Matt, pulling her to her feet. ‘It’s a great day for the Irish, but I can’t answer for my actions if we stay here necking much longer, and I can’t have you getting blasé.’

As he drove back into the town, she sat, her fingers clutched over the Coca-Cola ring, half-stunned with wonder at what was happening.

As he stopped the car outside the hotel, however, she looked at him with troubled eyes. ‘Matt, are you sure you’re over Cable?’

‘Darling,’ he said, flinging his arms out in a fair imitation of Al Jolson. ‘I’d run a million miles from one of her smiles. Come here, if you don’t believe me.’

It was a few seconds before they realised Yvonne was tapping angrily on the window.

‘Matt! Matthew!’

Matt turned round. ‘Yes?’

Yvonne looked in horror, suddenly realising it was Imogen he was kissing. ‘What on earth’s she doing?’

‘Just getting into training.’

Yvonne pursed her lips. ‘Where’s Cable?’

‘I’m not quite sure.’

‘Well, most of my wardrobe seems to be missing. .’

THE END