Jilly Cooper - Prudence

‘Lovely dins, darling,’ said Rodney.

‘I’m sorry about the beef,’ I said, flopping into an armchair.

‘You were had by the butcher,’ said Jane.

‘I never know if meat’s tender just by looking at it,’ I said. ‘It all looks the same, like Chinamen.’

‘Rodney’s going to put me on a poster,’ said Jane. ‘You’re going to see me hoarding down from every stare.’

There was a long pause. Then they both said simultaneously,

‘Darling, he’s not for you.’

‘Why not?’ I said, blushing.

‘Because he’s a bastard,’ said Rodney.

‘It’s only because he worsted you in an argument,’ I said. ‘He didn’t really mean what he said about advertising, he admitted it outside in the hall. He could’ve just as easily argued for advertising.’

‘That’s what’s wrong with him,’ said Jane, ‘he’s inhuman.’

‘Beneath that cold chilly legal exterior,’ said Rodney, ‘is an even chillier legal heart.’ He handed Jane the joint; she inhaled deeply.

‘I don’t know why he didn’t go and sit in the fridge,’ she said with a giggle. ‘Might have warmed him up a bit.’

She offered it to me, but I shook my head. I felt too miserable.

‘Come on, cheer up,’ said Rodney. ‘There are plenty more cold fish in the sea.’

‘But I don’t want to go out with a fish. Why does he keep asking me out?’ I said with a sob.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rodney. ‘He’s obviously far more interested in his own briefs than getting into yours.’

‘If he really cared for you,’ said Jane, ‘he’d have made an effort to be polite instead of freezing us out.’

‘Whatever he feels for you,’ said Rodney, much more gently, ‘it isn’t the normal healthy lust a man feels for a beautiful normal girl. He’s playing games with you, Pru, and I don’t reckon he’s up to any good.’

Whatever game Pendle was playing, he left me to stew after the dinner party. He didn’t ring me for a fortnight. I kidded myself he must be working hard, probably out of London. I tried to forget him, but instead spent a lot of time sobbing in the bath and composing long quotation-loaded letters of renunciation in my head. An added irritation was that Jane was having a riproaring time, going out every night mostly with Rodney.

On the Monday evening, a fortnight later, she was getting ready for yet another date, trying to repair the ravages of a weekend of dissipation in front of the drawing-room mirror, while I sat slumped on the sofa, eating my way through a box of chocolates.

‘You’ll get spots,’ said Jane, squirting blue liquid into bloodshot eyes.

‘Do you know what I’m sitting on?’ I stormed.

‘W-what?’

‘The shelf. I am hurtling towards spinsterhood and middle age without even a whisker of a supertax husband on the horizon. D’you know how long it is since I’ve been out with a man?’

‘What about Mark?’

‘He’s not a man, he’s a stockbroker.’

I got up and wandered into the kitchen next door.

‘I doubt if anyone will ever ask me out again. I must face up to a future looking after cats in an attic. I’ve definitely decided to give Pendle up.’

‘Good,’ said Jane.

‘At least I would, if he’d have the decency to ring me up, so I could tell him so. I’ve got nothing to do. And no one to do nothing with. I think I shall buy a dog.’

I opened the fridge, and found a jar of pickled onions. I ate five.

‘If he asked you out, I bet you’d go,’ said Jane, trying to paint out the purple circles under her eyes.

‘I would not. Not if they stripped me naked and wild horses dragged me four times round the world, through the forests and across the burning deserts.’

I ate another pickled onion noisily. The telephone rang. I must have qualified for the Olympics, hurtling across the room. It was Pendle. He apologized — but not quite enough — for not ringing before, he’d been impossibly busy. Had I eaten? Would I like some dinner?

An hour later, my curls still wet from a hasty washing, I sat in Julie’s bar, lapping up a large glass of wine, and talking out of the corner of my mouth like a gangster, so as not to asphyxiate Pendle with the smell of onion. He looked even rougher than Jane, his face greyish-green with tiredness, his eyes heavy-lidded and red-rimmed. I hoped it was from poring over legal documents not loose-living. When I first saw him I wondered why I’d been eating my heart out for him. Then, as the wine curled down inside me, the old magic started working again.

‘Have you had any exciting cases?’ I asked.

‘Just routine stuff, but I’ve got a big case coming up tomorrow.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Defending a rapist.’

After the way he’d tried to pull me the night we’d met I was tempted to point out that he must have plenty of experience in that field. But it seemed a shame to rot up the evening so early on.

‘Will you get him off?’

‘The odds are against it. My client’s a man called Bobby Canfield. He’s sales manager of a small export-import firm in the City. He’s charged with raping,’ he lowered his voice slightly, ‘Fiona Graham.’

I whistled. ‘Rick Wetherby’s girlfriend? But she’s ravishing.’

‘Ravished you mean,’ said Pendle.

Rick Wetherby was a very successful racing driver, absolutely dripping with charisma and money. His affair with Fiona Graham had been well publicized in the papers.

‘Weren’t they about to get married?’ I said.

Pendle nodded. ‘Bobby Canfield was her boss. She claims he asked her to work late — the day before she was due to give up work actually. Rick Wetherby turned up unexpectedly to collect her from work, and found the door locked. She claims Canfield had raped her.’

‘How exciting! Had he?’

‘Well, they definitely had it off. I’ve got to prove it wasn’t rape. The Wetherby clan are naturally out to hammer Canfield, and they’ve got the money to do it. They’ve hired Jimmy Batten to prosecute. He’s one of the best QCs in the country. Canfield should have got a QC to represent him too. I’m not really a big enough shot, but I handled his sister’s divorce a year back and I suppose he was impressed by that. He says Fiona Graham was absolutely asking for it. But it’s going to be a bugger to prove.’

‘Girls don’t usually “ask for it” when they’re about to marry something as luscious as Ricky Wetherby,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ said Pendle, ‘And Canfield’s got a shocking reputation with women.’

He held up his hardly touched glass of wine in the shaft of light from the table lamp, rocking it in the thick glass so it looked almost black. His eyes were just dark hollows now in a white drawn face.

‘It’s your big break,’ I said, wonderingly. ‘Aren’t you terrified?’

He grinned and filled up my glass. ‘Absolutely shit-scared.’

‘It’ll be packed out,’ I said wistfully. ‘I wish I could come and hear you.’

‘You can if you like,’ Pendle said. ‘If you can get the day off I’ll save you a place in court.’

If the onions hadn’t been making a comeback, I’d have kissed him then and there.

There was a heavy frost that night. Next morning, smothered in Jane’s red fox fur coat, I walked to the tube. Each twig and blade of grass glittered with whiteness. The last yellow leaves covered the parked cars and crunched like frosted cornflakes beneath my feet. Outside the court the crowds shivered and stamped their feet. They were mostly motor racing fans, anxious to catch a glimpse of Ricky Wetherby and his beautiful fiancée. For the sake of procedure her name was supposed to be kept a secret, but everyone knew who she was.

Once inside I was utterly turned on by the theatrical atmosphere of the packed courtroom, the rows of journalists lounging and exchanging gossips, the solemn beefy policemen and the array of wigs and robes. The Judge, in scarlet, was a little mole-like man with bright eyes and a twitching inquisitive nose. He looked capable of ferreting out the truth, and not likely to stand any nonsense.

Opposite, sitting in the vast dock, was Bobby Canfield, raffish, handsome, his face slightly weak about the mouth and chin, his hair thinning and too long at the back. And there was Pendle, even paler than ever, but outwardly calm and looking sensational in a grey wig and gown.

James Batten, QC, a sleek, dark, dapper otter of a man in his early forties, opened for the Prosecution, and for half an hour in magnificently sculptured prose had the privilege of so blackening Canfield’s character that before a word of evidence was heard there seemed no longer any doubt about his guilt.

‘In the dock, ladies and gentlemen of the Jury,’ he said in tones of fastidious horror, ‘is a man charged with a revolting offence, a typing pool Don Juan who took advantage of this inn-o-cent girl, so in love with her handsome fiancé that there was no other thought in her head but her marriage in a few weeks’ time.’

Canfield’s face was expressionless, but there was a muscle going like a sledgehammer in his cheek, and he was twisting his signet ring round and round his little finger. You could see Batten had impressed the Jury. Oh poor Pendle, I thought in anguish, what chance has he got?

‘I shall now call my first witness, Miss Graham,’ said Batten, smoothing his sleek hair with an air of anticipation. The Press and public gallery licked their lips. Fiona Graham did not disappoint them. She came into court wearing a grey wool dress with a white collar, a Hermes scarf attached to her Gucci bag, her shoulder-length blonde hair brushed back from a smooth forehead. With her blue eyes downcast, and a slight flush on her beautiful pink and white complexion, she indeed looked the picture of inn-o-cence. I thought the white puritan collar was overdoing it a bit, but there was no doubt the Jury were impressed. As she took the oath in a whisper, you could feel the waves of approval and sympathy. Even the Judge looked more benevolent.