Jilly Cooper - Harriet

Suddenly, her eyes lit on Harriet. ‘Just a minute, Mr Erskine.’ Her tone became conciliating. ‘How would you feel about a girl who’s — I might say — rather tragically placed?’

Harriet squirmed with mortification.

‘What sort of circumstances?’

The red-nailed hand rearranged the cacti on the desk. ‘Well, I have a Miss Poole on my books who has a young baby. . no, quite by chance she’s not married. You’ll see her?’ The neon smile was really flashing now. ‘Marvellous! You’ll find her a charming person. Very quiet and refined, not at all the type you’d expect. She drives a car, cooks, she’s got a degree in English, lots of experience with children.’

She waved away Harriet’s exclamation of protest.

‘All right, Mr Erskine, I’ll pop her in a taxi right away.’

She put down the receiver.

‘Well, Miss Poole, you’re in luck. That was Cory Erskine.’

‘The writer?’

Mrs Hastings nodded.

‘I love his books,’ said Harriet.

‘He’s obviously better at writing than getting it together with people,’ said Mrs Hastings. ‘His marriage has just come unstuck.’

‘Unstuck?’ said Harriet in amazement. ‘But he’s married to Noel Balfour, isn’t he? They’re always being held up as a model couple. She keeps being interviewed in magazines on how to keep one’s husband happy.’

‘No-one,’ said Mrs Hastings sourly, ‘could keep Mr Erskine happy. He’s one of the most difficult men I’ve ever had to deal with. You won’t get the job but, if by some miracle he does offer it to you, mind you take it. People in your position can’t afford to be choosy. And do smarten yourself up before you go round there, and try to be a little bit more positive. His address is Number Nine, Chiltern Street.’

How can you smarten yourself up, thought Harriet dolefully, as she frantically combed her hair, when you’ve run out of cleansing cream, deodorant and eye make-up. When you can’t afford to get your shoes mended, and you’ve taken the sheen out of your hair washing it in soap powder.

Number Nine stood out from the other houses in Chiltern Street, because it was painted cobalt blue with an emerald green door. Quaking with nerves, Harriet gave her last pound in the world to the driver and rang the bell. After some delay the door was answered by a tall angry looking man in a black polo-necked sweater.

‘Yes?’ he said unhelpfully.

‘Mr Erskine? I’ve come from the agency about the job.’

‘Come in. I’m on the telephone.’

She followed him upstairs into a large, untidy room. Books covered the walls, littered a very large desk, and were strewn all over the rose-coloured carpet.

‘I won’t be long,’ he said.

Lighting a cigarette, he picked up the telephone.

‘Oscar? You’re still there? Look, I don’t give a damn if the Yanks do pull out, we’ll raise the cash some other way, but I’m not writing another major character into the script!’

Poor Oscar, thought Harriet sitting down in a lemon yellow chair, hoping her laddered tights didn’t show too much.

Then she studied some photographs on a side table. Two were of very beautiful children, a boy and a girl, with long blonde hair and dark slanting eyes. Another photograph was of a racehorse. Cory Erskine, she remembered, had once been famous as an amateur jockey. The fourth was of Noel Balfour, herself, in a bikini, looking not unlike a sleek and beautiful racehorse — long-legged, full bodied, with the fine head, tawny eyes, classical features and wide sensual mouth that were so familiar to cinema audiences all over the world.

And what of the man Noel Balfour had been allegedly happily married to for so long? Harriet turned back to look at Cory Erskine, examining the aloof, closed face with its deadpan features, high cheekbones and slanting, watchful eyes. He looks like a Red Indian, she thought, inscrutable and not very civilized at that.

As he came to the end of his conversation, a shaft of winter sunshine came through the window, lighting up the unhealthy pallor of his face, the heavy lines around the mouth, the grey flecks in the long, dark hair.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said, putting down the receiver. He picked up a half empty whisky bottle. ‘Have a drink?’

Harriet shook her head. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime, and a drink the size of the one Cory Erskine was pouring into his own glass would put her out like a light.

When he offered her his cigarette case, however, she couldn’t resist taking one, although she knew one wasn’t supposed to smoke at interviews. Her hand shook so badly when he gave her a light that he had to steady it with his own hand.

He straightened up and looked at her for a minute. ‘You’re in pretty bad shape, aren’t you?’ he said abruptly. ‘How long is it since you had the baby?’

‘Three months,’ said Harriet. ‘I wasn’t awfully well afterwards; but I’m fine now.’

‘Who’s the father?’

Harriet blushed.

‘You can tell me,’ he said. ‘I don’t make a habit of rushing round on roller skates with a megaphone, as soon as anyone tells me anything.’

‘He was an undergraduate,’ said Harriet, ‘called Simon Villiers.’

Even after so long, the mention of his name made her mouth go dry, her throat tighten.

Cory Erskine looked up.

‘Simon Villiers? Good-looking boy, blond? Loaded with money? Doesn’t he want to go on the stage?’

Harriet started shaking. ‘You know him?’

‘I’ve met him. I had to give a couple of lectures on drama at Oxford last summer. Simon Villiers was allotted to look after me.’

‘How was he?’ asked Harriet in a strangled voice.

‘Extremely pleased with himself. Don’t you see him now? Doesn’t he help you?’

‘He gave me a lot of money to have a proper abortion, but I funked it so I bought some contact lenses instead and kept the baby.’

‘Does he know you’ve had it?’

‘I wrote and told him. He didn’t answer. I think he’s probably abroad. He wasn’t in love with me.’

‘Won’t your parents help?’ he asked.

‘Only if I have William — that’s the baby — adopted, and I can’t bear to do that.’

‘Where’s he now?’

‘I’ve left him with a friend — but only for the afternoon.’

Her stomach started rumbling with hunger. She felt at a distinct disadvantage in his lemon yellow chair, her bottom much lower than her legs.

Cory Erskine shook the ice round in his whisky. ‘And you want to look after my children?’

Harriet nodded, trying desperately not to appear too eager. He pointed to the photographs on the table.

‘Jonah and Chattie, aged eight and five. Contrary to all the rubbish you’ve read in the papers about Noel’s and my married bliss, they’ve had a very rough time. Ever since Jonah was born, Noel’s been making her mind up whether or not to leave me. The children have been used as pawns. Now she’s finally decided she wants to marry Ronnie Acland.’ His voice hardened. ‘And we’re getting a divorce.’

‘I’m abroad a lot. The children live up in Yorkshire in my old family home. Noel has never got on with any of the nannies. As a result, they’ve had a succession of people looking after them. They desperately need someone kind, loving, responsible and permanent to give them security.’

He looked at Harriet, taking in the pitiful thinness, the long legs sprawled like a colt’s, the lank dark hair drawn back in a crumpled black ribbon, the irregular features, sallow skin, huge frightened eyes, full trembling mouth.

‘Have you any idea what you’ll be in for?’ he said. ‘It’s a dead-end part of the world. Nothing ever happens there. All the locals ever talk about is hunting. I go up to work there because it’s more peaceful than London. Could you throw yourself into looking after two children? Because if you can’t, there’s not much point your coming. How old are you?’

‘Nearly twenty,’ said Harriet.

‘But Mrs Hastings said you’ve got a degree.’

‘No, I dropped out when I got pregnant.’

‘But you do have experience with children?’

‘I’ve looked after friends’ children a lot.’

‘But I gathered you’d had a job, or was that just part of Mrs Hastings’s meticulous inaccuracy? How long did it last?’

Harriet shuffled her feet. ‘Only one night,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It was a housekeeping job for a man in the country.’

‘And?’

‘He. . he tried to rape me the first night.’

Cory Erskine raised an eyebrow. ‘Quick work! How did he manage that?’

‘He came into my bedroom j-just after I’d turned out my light and. .’

‘And you didn’t feel it worth your while to capitulate. Very admirable.’

Harriet flushed angrily. If she had expected sympathy, she was quite wrong. Cory Erskine’s face was without expression.

‘And the baby,’ he went on. ‘Is he good? Does he cry much?’

Harriet took a deep breath. She might as well be honest, as she obviously wasn’t going to get the job.

‘Yes, he does; but I think babies are barometers. They reflect the mood of the person looking after them. I mean,’ she floundered on, ‘if I were happier and less worried, he might be, too. It’s just that I haven’t been very happy lately.’

Cory Erskine didn’t appear to be listening. He was examining the page in his typewriter. He turned it back, and typed in a couple of words with one finger.

Bastard! thought Harriet. How dare he be so callous!

‘Well, if he cries that’s your problem,’ he said without looking up. ‘We’ll put you both at the far end of the house, and then no-one but you will hear him.’