Riders

49

Charlie Masters’s house, a few miles outside Nairobi, was perfect. Open balconied, it had papyrus walls, leopard skins on the floor, a vast sunken bath, comfortable beds, and a fleet of smiling African boys who could not only cook but didn’t turn a hair at any outlandish English antics.

The garden, lushly crowded with jacaranda, flame trees, and a sweet-smelling tangle of herbaceous plants, also contained a tennis court and a swimming pool ringed with palm trees. All around lay the bush, and Helen had the feeling that the house was only here by the courtesy of nature and that any minute the jungle might take over. From the start, the holiday was a disaster. With Billy and Janey around, she and Rupert never had a moment to themselves. Billy and Rupert tended to play tennis or swim all morning, followed by a large lunch and lots of alcohol. Then sleep or sunbathing, followed by more tennis and swimming, followed by a large dinner, more drinking, and a trip round the Nairobi nightclubs. Billy was drinking again, not to excess, but on holiday he reckoned he was justified in coming off the wagon.

Helen, exhausted and emotionally bankrupt, wanted to sleep, be cherished, and made love to in the gentlest way and to talk through her and Rupert’s problems. She tried to persuade Rupert to dine alone with her, but the others seemed always to come along too. She was deeply embarrassed, too, by the way Rupert and Billy wandered round the garden with no clothes on, their cocks wiggling like those rubber devils that hang from driving mirrors. She was sure Janey wore a bikini only because she was pregnant. Helen worried too about the children — well, mostly Marcus, and insisted on telephoning home every day from the local post office, which was extremely time-consuming and irritated the hell out of Rupert.

Finally, being Rupert, as soon as he and Billy hit Kenya, people discovered they were there and old friends started ringing up and inviting them to parties. Newspapers wanted to interview them, Kenyan television wanted to send down a crew. The alacrity with which Rupert welcomed every diversion made it obvious that he didn’t want to get away from it all in the least.

After one long, boozy lunch, when Rupert and Billy had gone out on safari, Helen unbuttoned slightly to Janey.

“I simply don’t know what to do. Our marriage is in smithereens. Rupert simply doesn’t want to spend time with me. I feel everything I do gets on his nerves.”

Janey poured herself another glass of wine. “Want one?”

Helen shook her head. “Oh, all right, just a small one.”

They took their glasses out onto the terrace. A shower of rain had rinsed the earth, and a rainbow arced over the jacaranda trees.

“I think you’re too subservient,” said Janey. “I mean Billy was lovely but pretty casual before I took off with Kev.”

“Billy was always very caring,” said Helen.

“But he was always happy to booze with his chums rather than come home to me. Why don’t you try making Rupert jealous? He was jolly broody over Dino Ferranti. Even talked to Billy about having your telephone tapped.”

Helen looked amazed. “He had no cause. There was nothing between Dino and me except a few lunches.”

“Ha,” said Janey. “Rupert is aware how fragile a thing possession is. He can’t imagine anyone having lunch with anyone else’s wife without evil intent. He thinks everyone is like himself.”

“But what can I do? We can’t go on like this.”

“Don’t shove off until you’ve found someone else. If you’re going to be virtually a single parent, why not get paid for it? If you left Rupe you wouldn’t be able to buy dresses like that, or do up the house every two years. It’s very cold outside the marital cage.”

It was so oppressively hot that they returned to Janey and Billy’s bedroom. Sitting on the bed, Helen appeared to let off a huge fart. Crimson, she jumped to her feet. “That wasn’t me.”

Janey laughed. “You’ve sat on my vibrator.”

Helen took a slug of wine.

“If your sex life’s so good,” she said, “why d’you need a vibrator?”

“Oh they’re lovely,” sighed Janey, “and they do jazz things up. Billy’s wonderful, but not absolutely infallible.”

Outside, the crickets were shrilling their permanent burglar alarm, the frogs croaked in lazy lechery.

Janey peered at her smooth brown face in the mirror. “God, I look like a hag. Look at all these wrinkles.”

“You haven’t got any,” said Helen, “and now you’ve given up smoking, you won’t get all those little lines around your mouth.”

“I’m bound to get them as punishment for all the men I’ve sucked off,” said Janey ruefully.

Helen turned away, shocked. What an appalling thing to say. She’d only sucked Rupert off once and been so revolted she’d never done it again. She realized in despair how many light-years sexually she was behind Janey. She must try and catch up. Blushing even further, taking another huge gulp of wine, and gazing at the eyeless African mask on the wall, she asked, “Do you — do you really enjoy doing that to men?”

Janey shrugged. “Well, it’s an acquired taste. Whisky and dry martinis don’t taste very nice the first time. It’s all right if you swallow it fast. I said to Billy the other day, ‘It’s a pity one can’t have it with tonic, or better still with ice and lemon!’ The trouble with sex is that all sorts of things are wildly exciting in fantasy, but no good when they happen. I get frightfully turned on by the thought of being buggered, even whipped. But when darling Billy tried it, I didn’t like it at all.”

That evening they all went to a party which continued in a state of rampage and carousal until eight o’clock in the morning. Neither Rupert nor Billy felt like playing tennis the next morning, so they lazed round the pool.

Helen was wearing dark glasses, a large hat to prevent her freckles spreading, and a lime green bathing suit. She’s so thin now, she’s really better covered up, thought Janey critically.

Every day Janey’d start on another diet, and abandon it by lunchtime, when Rupert opened a bottle and the smell of Abdul’s cooking drifted out from the kitchen. But her skin was turning as golden as a peach. She was four months pregnant, and Billy liked her plump, anyway.

Helen, having finished yesterday’s Guardian, was reading Crime and Punishment with effort. Janey was reading Vogue. Rupert was flipping through Horse and Hound for mentions of his name. Billy was reading through a pornographic novel, skipping until he came to the sex bits. Jomo, the African boy, was steadily but unhurriedly sweeping up jacaranda petals and bird droppings. Morning glory spread in a sapphire haze over the tennis court wire, vying with the sky in blueness.

“Have you ever tried that?” said Billy, handing the book to Rupert.

“Once in Solihull during the Royal.”

“Let me see,” said Janey.

“No, you can’t,” said Billy, “or you’d go back to bed for the rest of the morning. And you’ve only got another week to get brown.”

“Billy never finished Histoire d’O,” said Janey, peeling a piece of loose skin off her heel. “He kept having to take me upstairs between pages.”

Rupert got up to pour himself a drink. He was broad-shouldered, bronzed, and rippling fit as any of his horses, thought Janey. She lifted her thighs slightly off the lilo, so the flesh fell downwards and they looked thinner.

“Bikinis are awfully stupid things,” said Janey. “You look as though you’d got one on when you take it off.”

“Take it off then,” said Billy idly, not looking up from his book.

Janey encountered a searching look from Rupert.

“All right,” she said, and removed her bikini. Her breasts had a soft, honeyed ripeness, her round belly swelled like a fig, and her bush was shaved, leaving her as smooth as a pink snooker ball. Helen, rigid with shock and envy, couldn’t take her eyes off her. Billy looked up and found Rupert staring at Janey with an erection like a steeple. Next moment Billy found he had an erection like a steeple too.

“Christ, it’s like a cathedral city round here,” he said, rolling over and returning to his book.

Without turning his head, Rupert said to Helen, “Take your bathing dress off, too.”

“I can’t. I burn so easily.”

“Use plenty of oil,” said Janey, her breasts moving as she handed Helen the Amber Solaire.

“I’m fine,” snapped Helen.

“Take it off,” repeated Rupert, with a distinct edge to his voice.

“No! What would Jomo think? It’s all right for Janey; she’s a guest. I’d never be able to look Abdul in the face again when I discussed desserts.”

She turned back to Crime and Punishment and read a whole page without taking in a word. Abdul seemed to take an enormously long time clearing up ashtrays and taking orders for drinks.

I can’t do it, I can’t, thought Helen in panic. I can’t take my clothes off in front of them and besides, said an inner more truthful voice, my boobs aren’t as good as Janey’s.

Janey didn’t bother to dress for a late lunch, which started with salad Niçoise. A large piece of tuna fish fell on her left breast. Rupert removed it with a spoon. Everyone, including Abdul, giggled immoderately, except Helen, who was a tight knot of embarrassment inside. Realizing this, Billy tried to persuade Janey to get dressed. But the atmosphere was getting more and more highly charged.

“I’m going to have a siesta,” said Janey, who’d been exchanging lingering glances with Rupert. Inside, seeing her flushed face and bloodshot eyes, she felt irritated at how awful she looked and wondered how she could have flirted so much with him.

The next minute Billy had come up behind her, catching her oiled breasts in his hands, kissing the back of her neck, slipping his hands between her legs, which seemed even more oiled.

“Christ, you’re excited,” he said.

Instantly they were on the bed, not bothering to close the windows or the door.

Helen went into her bedroom next door. Despite the oppressive heat, she was trembling violently. She could hear Janey’s cries and moans and hastily shut the window. Rupert came in, red-faced and hard-eyed.

“God, it’s hot in here. Why the hell have you shut the window?” Opening it, he paused for a few seconds, listening to Janey and Billy, a half-smile on his face. Helen was desperate for him to make love to her gently and tenderly, not because she really wanted it, but because she’d seen the intense, predatory way he’d suddenly started looking at Janey. She’d die if he had an affair with her.

“Rupert, I do love you.”

“Why don’t you show it, then?”

“It’s so hard when you’re always so angry with me.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He walked out, slamming the door.

He returned when it was dark and Helen was changing for dinner, grabbing her irritably. Helen shrank away. “I’ve just taken a bath and the Mountleys are coming to dinner.”

“So the Campbell-Blacks aren’t coming, hurrah, hurrah. Why the hell did you ask them?” Then answered for her. “Because they’ve already asked us twice and you can drop literary names all evening.”

Professor Mountley was in his fifties, an American who taught English Literature at Nairobi University. His English wife, a little younger, was a show-jumping groupie.

“She knows even more about my bloody horses than I do,” said Rupert.

Rupert mixed white ladies and they all sat on the terrace, gazing at the green pigeons and the enormous stars and listening to the rustle of night creatures: frogs bubbling like a cauldron, the hysterical chatter of baboons, and the water pump sound of approaching lion.

“I’m beginning to understand why evacuee children were so frightened of cows in the war,” said Janey.

“Nice to be here,” said Professor Mountley, raising his glass to Helen.

“Nice to be still here,” said Janey. “I’m sure some leopard is going to gobble me up.”

“Did you know warthogs lead exemplary married lives?” said Mrs. Mountley.

“No wonder there aren’t any in Gloucestershire,” said Rupert.

Rupert and Billy were drinking steadily, Janey only less so because it might be bad for the baby, and because she didn’t want to get too flushed. After long lovemaking, a sleep, three Alka-Seltzers, and a bath, she was feeling wonderful. She was wearing a frangipani flower in her hair and a white, ruffled, slightly transparent shirt, through which could be glimpsed her rosily sunburnt breasts. Conscious of Billy’s adoration, the professor’s admiration, and Rupert’s blatant lust, she was getting thoroughly overexcited.

Before dinner, Helen had gone in and offered her a choice of blue or lime green caftans. Being pregnant, she said, Janey might find them more comfortable. (“Comfortable indeed,” Janey had snorted to Billy. “Shapeless and ugly, you mean.”) If she wasn’t aware of Helen’s lack of malice, she’d have thought she was doing it on purpose.

“Billy’s been reading all about orgies today,” she said to Professor Mountley at dinner.

“Janey!” said Helen furiously.

“We call it group therapy in the States,” said the professor, with a nervous laugh.

Soon they were all discussing orgies.

I can’t bear it, thought Helen. I wanted a nice civilized evening discussing Crime and Punishment with the professor and all anyone can talk about is sex. They were all philistines. Earlier in the week she’d lent Janey her precious copy of A Hero of Our Time, and Janey had dropped it in the bath. Rupert was talking to Janey in an undertone. Frantically she tried to lip read what they were saying.

Billy, sensing her distress, patted her arm. “Everything’s under control.”

The Mountleys left around midnight, when everyone was still sitting round the table. The professor was very reluctant to go, but Mrs. Mountley had recently become a grandmother and felt things were definitely getting out of hand.

Helen, having seen them off, stood on the balcony breathing in the heady smell of warm earth, frangipani, dust, and burning charcoal. Beyond the garden she could see the gleaming eyes of waiting animals. But the animals inside the house frightened her much more. Determined to break the spell, she went back into the dining room.

“Don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely exhausted.”

Rupert looked up, a long cigar clamped between his white teeth.

“Let’s have another drink,” he said, getting up and filling everyone’s glasses with brandy, “and then let’s go to bed,” he paused, “together.”

Helen laughed nervously. “Together?”

“Sure — why not?”

Janey got up, her eyes glittering. “Do we use your bedroom or ours.”

“I’d prefer a home fixture,” said Rupert. “And besides, our bed is bigger.”

He strolled over to Janey and began to kiss her. Frozen with horror, Helen watched him take her pink breast out of the white shirt and gently stroke it, then he undid the zip of her trousers. Helen shot a panic-stricken look at Billy, only to see him watching with fascinated pleasure.

Janey ran laughing into the bedroom. Giving a view halloo, Billy followed her. Rupert turned to Helen, holding out his hand.

“Come on, darling, or you’ll miss the first act.”

Helen looked at him aghast. “We can’t! what about the servants?”

“I sent them home hours ago.” He grabbed her arm.

At the bedroom door she balked. Billy, already undressed, was sitting on the bed drinking brandy, watching Janey and wearing Helen’s sun hat. He was roaring with excited laughter and had a huge erection. Janey was standing in front of the mirror, tossing her hair back, spraying Helen’s most expensive scent over her boobs, and jiggling them so they caught the light. Helen turned to bolt, but Rupert’s viselike grip on her arm tightened.

“No you don’t. Don’t be a fucking spoilsport. We might finally find out what turns you on.” Shoving her towards the bed, he turned the key and pocketed it. Turning to Billy, he added, “It’s harder than getting Snakepit into the lorry.”

Billy took off the sun hat and turned to Helen.

“Come on, lovie, it’ll be fun. No one’s going to eat you.”

“Everyone’s going to eat her,” said Rupert and, pulling down Helen’s panties and lifting her dress and her pink silk petticoat, he kissed her bush. As she wriggled frantically away, his hand clamped down on her bottom.

Across the room her eyes met Janey’s, which were mocking and slightly contemptuous.

“Come and help me undress her,” Rupert said to Janey.

As he peeled off the black dress and the petticoat, Janey undid the pink bra.

“Lovely underwear,” she said. “Did you get it at Janet Reger?”

Helen covered her pitifully small breasts with one hand, clasping the other over her bush.

“I can’t, I can’t,” she pleaded to Rupert in panic. “I truly can’t.”

“Don’t be so bloody wet,” he hissed. “Do you want to make me look a complete idiot. Here she is, all yours,” he added and, scooping her up, dropped her on the bed between Janey and Billy. The fastest trouser-dropper in the business, next minute he was on the bed beside Janey.

From then on it was a heaving anthill of legs and arms. Helen lay beneath Rupert, her eyes glazed, her hair coming down, as responsive as a corpse, aware that Rupert was fondling Janey’s breasts at the same time. Janey, determined to put on a virtuoso performance, climbed on top of Billy, bucking like a bronco, arching her back in pleasure, writhing and wriggling against Rupert’s hands.

Then they changed over and, despite shutting her eyes, Helen knew Billy was inside her. He was much solider and heavier, yet gentler than Rupert.

“I’m not hurting you, am I, angel?” he breathed in her ear, running his hands over her body. “You’re so beautiful. Please enjoy it.”

Helen didn’t respond, lying rigid with horror, her teeth clenched, eyes closed. Billy, her dear, dear friend. How could he do this to her? But Billy was watching Janey bucking on top of Rupert. God, she looked wonderful! He was so proud of her!

“I’m coming,” cried Rupert suddenly, his face contorting.

“So am I,” said Janey, screaming and threshing.

She might be faking, thought Billy, but it’s a lovely performance, and next moment he’d shot into Helen. Looking down, he saw two tears welling out of her closed eyes and coursing down her cheeks.

“Don’t cry, angel. Please don’t cry.”

More tears welled.

Oh Christ, he thought. We shouldn’t have forced her. He rolled off, gathering her against him. Rupert gave Janey a long, long kiss, then eased out of her and said in an undertone, “See if you can get Helen going.”

“Move over,” Janey said to Billy, pushing him to the left of the bed. “Our turn now.” She trailed her fingertips up Helen’s thighs. Helen gave a moan of terror, shrinking away from Janey, eyes darting frantically for a way of escape. But, like bookends, Rupert and Billy blocked her exit.

“No, no, no,” she sobbed, as Janey’s insistent fingers started burrowing inside her, as she felt Janey’s breasts flopping on her stomach and Janey’s tongue on her breasts.

“Jesus,” Billy muttered to himself. “I’ll be off again in a minute.”

“Please don’t be frightened, Helen,” whispered Janey, as she caressed and stroked. “We’re all having such a good time, we want you to enjoy it too.”

I can’t go on forever, thought Janey, five minutes later. No wonder Rupert complains she’s frigid. She needs twenty-four hours’ defrosting. Rupert, bored with a spectator role, crawled down the bed and entered the slippery warmth of Janey from behind, so he could watch Helen. She looked like a martyr at the stake. Putting his hand around, he found that, despite Janey’s ministrations, she was as dry as a marathon runner’s throat.

She’s useless, he thought.

Suddenly, with Rupert behind Janey, Helen saw a way of escape. Shoving Janey to the left, she wriggled away from her and, before any of them had realized it, had jumped off the bed and stumbled across the room. In Rupert’s pocket she found the key.

“Come here,” he snarled.

For once she was in luck. In his excitement, Rupert hadn’t locked the door properly. Crying hysterically, she managed to slip out, slam the door, and turn the key, just as he crashed against it. She longed to run away into the night, but on the terrace the moon had gone in and everywhere was as black as ink. She heard the dry cough of a leopard and decided to settle for the third bedroom. There were no sheets on the bed. Huddled under the counterpane, gazing unseeingly at the bookcase, she shuddered until dawn. If her sleeping pills hadn’t been in the bathroom cupboard, which could only be reached by going through the bedroom, she would have taken the lot. Any minute she expected an enraged Rupert to appear and drag her back to the torture chamber.

But the others were enjoying themselves.

“The grown-up has gone to bed now,” said Janey.

“All hands on dick,” said Rupert, filling up the glasses.

Playing games of their own, they carried on till morning.