Jilly Cooper - Octavia

‘It’s a beautiful name. It suits you. Did your mother marry the man she was mad about?’

‘Oh no, someone quite different, and then someone else, and then someone else. My father was married twice too, but he’s dead now. I’ve lost count of my stepbrothers and sisters.’

‘It can’t have been very easy for you. I come from a broken home myself, but not one that’s in smithereens. Do you see your mother?’

‘Occasionally, when she’s sober, or comes to London. I hardly ever go down to the country to see her. I hate scenes. She’s rather sad now. Her looks are going and she gets terrible maudlin fits reminiscing about my father, which drive her present husband mad.’

How gentle and compassionate his eyes were now, and how ridiculously long his eyelashes.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, putting a husky little break into my voice that I’d perfected over the years. ‘I didn’t mean to bore you with family history. I never talk about it usually.’

That was a lie. It was Act I in the Octavia Brennen seduction routine — make them feel I need looking after.

‘I’m flattered you told me,’ he said.

‘How did you two meet?’

‘Gussie came and did temporary typing for me while my own secretary was skiing. She wasn’t wildly efficient, every letter had to be typed over again, and she kept putting things in the wrong envelopes, but she was so sweet that when my own streamlined secretary came back and restored order, I realized I was missing Gus. I telephoned the agency, started taking her out and that was that.’

‘I’m not surprised; she’s so lovely.’ I hoped he couldn’t detect the whopping ring of insincerity in my voice. ‘She always protected me from all the bullies when we were at school.’

‘Yes, she grows on you.’

She was evidently growing on Charlie.

‘Once I tried to diet faithfully,’ she was saying. ‘Day after day, week after week, not eating a thing but lettuce and steamed fish. But all I’d lost after six weeks was half an inch in height!’ She shrieked with laughter. So did Charlie and Jeremy.

They were playing the Rolling Stones latest record. I leaned forward, pressing my elbows together to deepen my cleavage. I saw Jeremy glance down at it and quickly glance away.

‘I’m mad for this tune,’ I said.

‘What are we waiting for?’ said Charlie, getting up.

Dancing is the thing I do best in the world. It seems to release all the frustrations from my body, all the evils from my soul.

I was wearing a long, gold, semi-transparent tunic, exactly the same colour as my hair, with a mass of gold chains round my neck. I felt like a piece of seaweed streaming with the tide of the music, flowing now this way, now that. I knew everyone in the room was watching me, the women with envy, the men with lust.

Charlie dances superbly too; his body seems to turn to rubber. I never fancy him so much as when we’re on the dance floor. Through a sheet of gold hair I saw Jeremy was watching me. He turned and said something to Gussie; she smiled and looked in my direction. The music stopped; hand-in-hand Charlie and I wandered back to our table.

‘We’re off,’ I said, deciding this was the ideal exit note.

‘Going home?’ said Gussie.

‘No, we’re going to another place,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s just been opened by a mate of mine. Want to come?’ He had changed his tune.

Jeremy looked at Gussie; she shook her head.

‘We’ve both got to get up early in the morning, but do give me your telephone number, Octavia. We must keep in touch.’

‘We must,’ I said, staring shamelessly at Jeremy. ‘You must both come to dinner.’

‘Yes, we’d like to,’ he said, emphasizing the ‘we’.

Even when we finally got home, I was still walking on air, unable to keep the Cheshire cat grin of exultation off my face. As the lift shot up to the penthouse flat I had the feeling it might take me through the roof straight up to the stars.

My flat was beautiful. Alexander, my brother, who is an expert at interior decorating, had helped me do it up. Everyone gasped when they first saw it. Huge fleshy potted plants, banked at each end of the long drawing room, gave the effect of a jungle. The fourth wall was all window, looking out onto the lamp-lit plane trees of Green Park. Kicking off my shoes, I felt my feet sink into the thick, white carpet.

Almost immediately the telephone rang.

‘Answer it, would you?’ I said to Charlie.

‘Yeah?’ said Charlie, picking up the receiver. ‘It’s someone called Ricardo,’ he added. ‘He sounds a long way away.’

‘Crackling with lust,’ I said, taking the receiver. ‘Go and get a bottle out of the fridge, darling,’ I said to him loudly, so Ricardo could hear.

‘Hi, my darling,’ I said to Ricardo.

When I had taken my time over the telephone call, I wandered into the bedroom. Charlie was lying naked on the blond fur counterpane, drinking champagne and looking beautiful and sulky. On the wall above his head hung my favourite picture: a 16th century Italian oil painting of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, surrounded by hundreds of animals and birds.

‘It’s vital,’ my brother had insisted, ‘to have something pretty to look at over one’s bed to while away the excruciating boredom of sexual intercourse.’ I knew that picture pretty well.

Ignoring Charlie, I undressed unhurriedly and sat down at my dressing table, admiring my reflection in the triple mirror. I liked what I saw. My body was as warm as an apricot in the soft light, my breasts, in contrast with the extreme slenderness of the rest of my body, had a heavy golden ripeness. Voluptuously I began to brush my hair.

‘Who’s Ricardo?’ said Charlie, trying to appear cool.

‘A rather persistent bit of my past,’ I said. ‘You know I never let a dago by.’

Charlie laughed. ‘I hope he is past.’

He got up, crossed the room and stood behind me, his hands caressing my shoulders. His body was dark brown from the Marbella sun as he bent his head to kiss me. I could see the gold streaks growing out of his dark hair.

We made a stunning picture, like a Fellini film.

‘Come on, Narcissus,’ he said. ‘It’s time for bed.’

Afterwards he reached out for the champagne and gave me a glass.

‘Christ, you were sensational tonight,’ he muttered sleepily, as I examined my now tousled but not unpleasing reflection in the mirror opposite. ‘What got into you?’

‘You did,’ I said, and laughed softly. There was no need to tell him the whole time we had been making love I had been practising every trick in the trade, imagining he was Jeremy West.

He fell asleep almost immediately, with his arms around me. It was terribly hot. I soon wriggled out of his embrace, and lay on my back, thinking about Jeremy, memorizing every angle of his face and every word he’d spoken to me. The fact that he was engaged to Gussie didn’t worry me a bit, made it more of a challenge.

Eventually I got up, went to the bathroom, removed every scrap of make-up, then luxuriously massaged skin food all over my body. Then I took a couple of sleeping pills, switched off the telephone and fell into a dreamless sleep.

When I awoke at two o’clock in the afternoon Charlie had gone, leaving me a note on the pillow, saying he loved me, and to ring him when I was conscious. I switched on the telephone, it rang almost immediately. ‘’Ullo, this is the Moroccan Embassy,’ I said.

‘Octavia, you are dreadful; it’s Gussie here,’ came the breathless, eager voice.

‘Gussie, how lovely!’

‘I thought I’d ring straightaway, before we lost touch.’

‘You must come to dinner,’ I said.

‘We’d love to, but actually we’ve got a plan. Are you doing anything the weekend after next?’

‘I’m supposed to be going to France, but it’s a fluid arrangement.’

‘Well, I expect you’d find it awfully boring, but Jeremy shares a boat with another chap, and we’ve got it next weekend. We wondered if you’d like to come too.’

‘I might get seasick,’ I said, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice.

‘Oh you couldn’t! It’s a barge, and all we do is drift up and down the canals, going through the locks and tying up where it takes our fancy. Would you like to bring Charlie?’

‘He’ll be away,’ I lied. ‘It’s not a big thing, Charlie and me, we’re just mates.’

‘You haven’t got someone special you’d like to bring?’

‘I did have. We were going to get married, but he was killed in a car crash earlier this year.’

‘Oh, poor, poor Tavy,’ she said, unconsciously lapsing into the nickname of schooldays. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’

There was a pause.

‘Well, anyway,’ she floundered on. ‘If you didn’t want to bring someone, Jeremy had thought. . do you know Gareth Llewellyn?’

‘No, should I? The name sounds faintly familiar.’

‘He’s a great friend of Jeremy’s. We’ve been trying to persuade him to come on the boat for ages, but he works so hard, he can never get away. I think you’d like him; he’s awfully attractive.’

I didn’t care if he were. My mind was already jumping ahead, dreaming of a long weekend, drifting up and down the canals, lounging on the deck in my bikini by day, my hair gleaming pale in the moonlight by night — how could I not hook Jeremy?

‘It sounds great,’ I said. ‘I’d love to come. Why don’t you and Jeremy come to dinner on Monday and we can talk about it?’

I planned Monday’s dinner like a military operation. As I’m a rotten cook and can be guaranteed to louse up even fake mashed potato, I arranged for the food to be sent up from the restaurant around the corner, so I could pass it off as my own efforts.