Octavia

Chapter Four

The heat wave had set in relentlessly. The traffic glittered and flashed in the sunshine as it crawled up Piccadilly. The park was full of typists in bikinis, sliding off the deckchairs as the park attendant approached with his ticket machine. I could feel the tarmac burning through the soles of my shoes as I crossed the road to Freddy’s. I nipped into the Ladies first to tidy my hair and take the shine off my nose. I was wearing new pale pink dungarees with nothing underneath. I toyed with the idea of wearing them when I travelled down with Gareth tomorrow.

‘Thank you very much,’ I said in a loud voice to the cloakroom attendant as I left, just to draw her attention to the fact I’d put 50p in the saucer. Since I’d met Jeremy, sheer happiness made me overtip everyone.

Freddy’s was packed as usual and giving off the same my-dear-punctuated roar as a smart wedding. Along the bar sat advertising executives with brushed forward hair and romantic looking young men wearing open-necked shirts. Chatting them up were beautiful girls, their streaked hair swinging, their blusher in exactly the right place, their upper lips painted a perfect crimson double circumflex. As they sat, fingers tapping on their slim thighs, eyes flickering over each other’s shoulders to see who had just come in, they constantly checked their appearance in the mirror above the bar. Freddy’s was the current favourite haunt of trendies and show business people, anyone in fact who was important enough to get in, and rich enough to get out.

Freddy, a mountain of a man with a face as red as a Dutch cheese, was serving behind the bar.

‘Hullo, ugly mug,’ he bawled at me. ‘How the hell did you get past the doorman?’ Nearby drinkers looked at me in admiration. Only favourites and the famous got insulted. Freddy leaned over and pumped my hand vigorously.

‘Where the hell you been anyway, Octavia? Sneaking over to Arabella’s, I suppose. Can’t say I blame you, I eat there too. The prices here are too high for me.’ He bellowed with laughter, then added, ‘Your no-good brother’s already at the table upstairs drinking himself stupid.’

I followed the smell of garlic, wine and herbs up to the dining-room, waited in the doorway until I had everyone’s undivided attention, then sauntered across the room. The pink dungarees definitely had the desired effect; the front flap only just covered my nipples.

Xander was sitting at a window table, flipping through a Sotheby’s catalogue. He looked up, smiled, and kissed me on both cheeks. ‘Hullo, angel, you look positively radiant. Have I forgotten your birthday or something?’

Waiters immediately rushed up, spreading a napkin across my knees, pushing in my chair, getting a waiting bottle of Poully Fuissé out of an ice bucket, and filling up my glass. Xander ordered another large whisky.

Perhaps it’s because he is my brother that I always think Xander is the best looking man in the world. He is slim and immensely elegant, with very pale patrician features, brilliant grey eyes, fringed by long dark lashes, and light brown hair, the colour mine was before I started bleaching it. Even on the hottest day of the year he gives the impression of a saluki shivering with overbreeding. As usual he was exquisitely dressed in a pale grey suit, grey and white striped shirt, and a pink tie.

Impossibly spoilt, with all the restlessness that comes with inherited wealth, he moved through life like a prince, expecting everyone to do exactly what he wanted, and capable of making himself extremely disagreeable if they did not. Few people realized how insecure he was underneath, or that he employed a technique of relentless bitching to cover up his increasing black glooms. He was always sweet to me, but I was very glad he was my brother and not a boyfriend. Part of his charm was that he always gave one his undivided attention. He didn’t need to look over your shoulder, because he was always the one person people were looking over other people’s shoulders to see.

On closer examination that day, he looked rather ill, his eyes laced with red, his hands shaking. He had placed himself with his back to the window, but still looked much younger than his thirty years.

‘How are you?’ I said.

‘A bit poorly. I ran into a bottle of whisky last night. Later I landed up at Jamie Bennett’s. We smoked a lot of grass. I’m sure it had gone off. There was a case of stuffed birds in the corner and Jamie started cackling with laughter, saying they were flying all over the room, then suddenly he was sick in a wastepaper basket.’

‘What happened to you?’

‘I started feeling frightful too, and decided I must get home, so I drove very slowly to Paddington, but it wasn’t there, so I came back again.’

I giggled. ‘So you never got home?’

He shot me a sideways glance. ‘Can I tell Pamela I spent last night at your place?’

‘Of course,’ I said lightly. ‘It’s only another point she’ll notch up against me.’

Pamela had never forgiven me for slashing my wrists the day she and Xander got married, taking all the attention from her.

‘How’s our dear mother?’ I said.

‘Absolutely awful! You’ve no idea how lucky you are not being the apple of her eye. She rings up every day. Gerald is evidently threatening to walk out if she doesn’t stop drinking, so she has to resort to having quick swigs in the lavatory.’

‘Does she ever say anything about me?’ I asked. Even now I can’t mention my mother’s name without my throat going dry.

‘Never,’ said Xander. ‘Do you want to order?’

I wasn’t hungry, but I hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunch-time, and the wine was beginning to make me feel dizzy.

‘I’ll have a Cobb salad and a grilled sole,’ I said.

‘You really do look marvellous,’ said Xander. ‘What’s up? Someone must be. Who’s he married to?’

‘No one,’ I said, grooving four lines on the table cloth with my fork.

‘There must be some complication.’

‘He’s engaged,’ I said.

‘I didn’t know anyone did that any more. Who to?’

‘An eager overgrown schoolgirl; she’s so fat, wherever you stand in the room she’s beside you.’

‘Unforgiveable,’ said Xander with a shudder. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Tall and blond — almost as beautiful as you, and so gentle and sympatico.’

‘Rich?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t asked him; not particularly.’

‘Well that’s no good then.’ Xander broke a roll impatiently with his fingers, then left it. He watched his figure like a lynx. Then he sighed, ‘You’d better tell me about him.’

Conversation was then impossibly punctuated by waiters laying tables, asking who was having the smoked trout, giving us our first courses, brandishing great phallic pepper pots over our plates, and pouring us more wine. A quarter of an hour later I was still picking bits of bacon out of my avocado and chopped spinach.

‘Am I boring you?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Xander gently. ‘But it really doesn’t matter. You have got him bad. What about Charlie?’

‘Charlie who?’ I said.

‘Like that, is it? Who’s going to be the other guy on the boat?’

‘A friend of Jeremy’s called Gareth Llewellyn.’

Xander looked up. ‘He’s supposed to be rather agreeable.’

‘If you like jumped-up Welsh gorillas,’ I said.

Xander laughed. ‘He’s phenomenally successful — and with birds too, one hears.’

‘Oh, he’s convinced he’s got the master key to everyone’s chastity belt,’ I said. ‘But I’ve had the lock changed on mine. He doesn’t like me very much. He caught me swapping extravagant pleasantries with Jeremy. He knows something’s up.’

‘Well, I’d get him on my side, if I were you,’ said Xander. ‘He sounds pretty formidable opposition.’

Now we were into the rat-race of the second course. Waiters kept butting in, asking if I wanted my sole on or off the bone, offering vegetables and salads, more wine and more phallic pepper and tartare sauce.

‘Everything all right, sir?’ said the head waiter, hovering over us a minute later.

‘Yes, perfect, if you’d go away and leave us alone,’ snapped Xander.

‘There’s only one thing,’ I said, pleating the table cloth with my fingers. ‘Can you possibly lend me £200?’

‘What for?’ said Xander.

‘I need some clothes for the weekend.’

‘You’ve got quite enough,’ sighed Xander. ‘As it is, Covent Garden comes to you every time they want to dress an opera.’

‘Just £200,’ I pleaded. ‘I promise, once I hook Jeremy I won’t ask you for another penny.’

‘Darling, you don’t seem to realize that things are frightfully tight at the moment. There’s a little thing called inflation which neither you nor Pamela seem to have heard of. We’re all going to have to pull our horns in. My dear father-in-law’s been on the warpath all morning, bellyaching about my expenses. I gather this year’s accounts are pretty disastrous too.’

‘For the whole group or just Seaford-Brennen?’

‘Well Seaford-Brennen in particular. Everyone’s very twitchy at the moment. Something’s obviously up! Directors going round after dark piecing together one’s torn-up memos. Every time you go down the passage, you’re subjected to a party political broadcast on behalf of the accounts department. Both Glasgow and Coventry look as though they’re going to come out on strike — the shop stewards so much enjoyed appearing on television last time.’

‘Things’ll get better,’ I said, soothingly.

‘Bloody well hope so,’ said Xander. ‘I’ve borrowed so much money from the company they’ll have to give me a rise so I can pay them back. Thank God for Massingham, at least he’s on my side.’

Hugh Massingham was managing director of Seaford-Brennen, a handsome, hard-drinking Northerner in his late forties, who liked Xander’s sense of humour. They used to go on the tiles together, and bitch about Ricky Seaford. Hugh Massingham liked me too. When my father died six years ago he had looked after me, and eventually we’d ended up in bed. The affair had cooled down but we’d remained friends, and he still spent odd nights with me.

‘He sent his love,’ said Xander. ‘Said he was going to come and see you next week.’

I wondered, now I’d fallen for Jeremy, if I’d be able to come up with the goods for Massingham any more. Never mind, I’d cross that bridge party when I came to it.

Depression suddenly seemed to encompass the table. I could feel one of Xander’s black glooms coming on, probably caused by my tactlessly rabbiting on about Jeremy — which must only emphasize the stupid mockery of his marriage.

I took his hand.

‘How’s Pamela?’ I said.

‘Not awfully sunny at the moment. She’s spending the weekend at Grayston with Ricky and Joan, and I’ve refused to go. I have to put up with my dear father-in-law five days a week, I need a break at weekends. And I can put up with Joan even less, the great screeching cow. No one can accuse me of marrying Pamela for her Mummy.’

I giggled. ‘What’s she done now?’

‘Alison’s pregnant.’

‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’

Alison was Pamela’s younger sister, only married this year.

‘And dear Joan never stops subtly rubbing Pammie’s nose in it that she isn’t,’ said Xander.

‘What does the gynaecologist say?’

‘He can’t find anything wrong with her. Joan wants her to have a second opinion — nice if she had an opinion at all. So the onus falls firmly on me. Pamela takes her temperature every morning, and when it goes up I’m supposed to pounce on her, but I always oversleep, or have debilitating hangovers, or don’t get home like last night. But I’ve a feeling nothing’s going to happen while I lie on one side of the bed reading Dick Francis, and she lies on the other poring over gardening books.’

He was rattling now. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette. I could sense his utter despair.

‘Is it absolute hell?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘I suppose prep school was worse, but at least one had longer holidays then.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘She’ll get pregnant soon.’

Xander was busy ordering coffee and brandies and I was easing a piece of bacon out of my teeth, when I looked up and saw a boy of about twenty-three standing in the doorway. He had dark Shelley-length hair, huge languorous dark eyes, and a Mediterranean suntan. He wore navy blue pinstripe trousers and was carrying his jacket slung across his shoulders. His pale blue shirt was open at the neck to reveal a jungle of gold medallions nestling in a black hairy chest. He looked like a movie star. For a second I felt a flicker of unfaithfulness to Jeremy.

‘Look at that,’ I breathed to Xander.

‘I’m already looking,’ said Xander, and suddenly there was a touch of colour in his pale cheeks, as the dark boy looked round, caught Xander’s eye, waved, and wandered lazily towards us.

‘See a pinstripe suit, and pick him up, and all the day you’ll have good luck,’ murmured Xander.

‘Hi,’ said the dark boy. ‘I was worried I’d missed you. The traffic is terrible.’

He had a strong foreign accent, and was shooting me an openly hostile look, which became distinctly more friendly when Xander said,

‘This is my sister, Octavia. Darling, this is Guido. He comes from Florence, I must say I learnt more on my first trip to Florence than during my whole time at Radley.’

Guido sat down and said he would have expected Xander to have such a beautiful sister. Xander had completely shed his black gloom now. He seemed greatly exhilarated.

‘Guido works at the Wellington Gallery,’ he said. ‘He’s in disgrace at the moment because he put his foot through a Sisley yesterday, stepping back to avoid the attentions of the gallery owner. Another large brandy and some more coffee,’ he added to the waiter.

Guido was staring openly at Xander. His glance had flickered over me and passed on in that dismissive way a man would by-pass the woman’s page in a newspaper, knowing it had nothing to offer him.

‘How is your dear wife?’ he said.

‘Dear,’ said Xander. ‘She’s busy putting in a swimming pool. You must come down for a weekend.’

Suddenly I felt de trop, and got to my feet.

‘I must go,’ I said.

‘Must you?’ said Xander, but without conviction.

Then he suddenly remembered. ‘I was going to get you some money, wasn’t I? Come on, we’ll go and chat up Freddy, I’ll be right back,’ he said to Guido.

We found Freddy in the bar.

‘Now,’ said Xander, making sure he looked Freddy straight in the eye. ‘Can you cash me a small cheque?’

‘Of course. How much?’

‘£200.’

Freddy didn’t bat an eyelid. He pulled a thick pile of notes in a money clip out of his pockets, and laid twenty tenners on the bar.

‘I’ll have to date the cheque sometime after the first of the month; is that OK?’

‘Sure,’ said Freddy, soothingly. ‘I can always sue you.’

Xander gave me the money and escorted me to the door. I thanked him profusely.

‘Don’t give it a thought,’ he said. ‘Now have a ball with Jeremy Fisher. But keep your options open and your legs shut, and don’t rule out Gareth Llewellyn altogether; he could keep us both in a style to which we’re totally unaccustomed. Don’t you think,’ he jerked his head in the direction of the dining room, ‘that that is quite the most ravishing thing you’ve seen in years?’

‘Yes, he is,’ I said with a sinking heart, ‘but for God’s sake be careful, Xander.’

‘And the same to you, darling. Give me a ring when you get back.’

And he was gone, trying to appear not to be in too much of a hurry to get upstairs.

I felt curiously flat and decided to wander along to Hatchards and buy some highbrow books to impress Jeremy on the boat.