Rupert arrived at the party in a new suit — pale blue and made for him by one of Italy’s leading couturiers, who normally only designed clothes for women, but who had succumbed because he rightly felt Rupert would be such a good advertisement for his product.

Anyone else would have looked a raving poofter, thought Billy, particularly wearing an amethyst-colored shirt and tie. But such was Rupert’s masculinity, and the enhanced blueness of his eyes, and the lean, broad-shouldered length of his body, that the result was sensational.

All the girls at the party were certainly falling over themselves to offer him smoked salmon and asparagus rolls and fill up his glass with champagne.

“They’re all convinced I’m an American tennis player,” he said, fighting his way through the crowd to Billy. “I’ve already been complimented three times on my back hand and my serve. The only thing I want to serve here,” he said, lowering his voice, “is Fenella Maxwell.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” snapped Billy.

“She wants it,” said Rupert softly. “She was like a mare in season last night. Besides I’ve a score to settle with Hopalong Chastity.”

“Poor sod’s in hospital with a smashed leg. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“William, he’s tried to kill me twice, once with a knife, once with Macaulay. I intend to get my own back.”

He glanced across the room to where Fen was talking to the Italian minister of the arts, who was about three times her age. She looked pale and tired.

“Look at her being letched over by that disgusting wop. I’ll just make her jealous by chatting up those two girls over there and I’ve got her on a plate.”

“Your conceit is unending. Christ, I wish I could have a drink.”

“Those two look as though they might have some dope at home. Come on.”

The girls were certainly very pretty — one blond, one redheaded.

“You must be tennis players,” giggled the redhead. “You look so incredibly healthy.”

“No,” said Rupert, unsmiling.

“What do you do then?”

“I ride horses,” said Rupert; then, after a pause, “extremely successfully.”

The conversation moved on to marriage.

“Billy is separated and gloriously available,” said Rupert. “I am married and ditto.”

“Doesn’t your wife mind?”

“No.”

“Does she work for a living?”

“No, nor does she smoke, drink, or fuck.”

The girls laughed uproariously. Billy turned away. Outside it was dusk. A stone nymph in an off-the-shoulder dress reclined in the long grass, set against a blackening yew tree. Fireflies flickered round a couple of orange trees in tubs. Water from a fountain tumbled down gray-green steps between banks of pale lilac geraniums.

I can’t bear it, he thought miserably, and toyed with the idea of asking Fen to come and have dinner with him alone. She didn’t look very happy, particularly now the blonde was obviously getting off with Rupert. She and her friend were secretaries at the embassy, the blonde was saying; they loved the life in Rome.

Her redhead friend joined Billy by the window.

“I’m sorry about your marriage,” she said. “I’m separated myself. No one who hasn’t been through it knows how awful it is.”

Billy mistook the brimming tears of self-pity in her eyes for pity of his own plight.

“When did you split up?” he asked.

“Six months ago,” she said, and she was off.

Fifteen minutes later they were interrupted by Driffield, looking like a thundercloud.

“Crippled lame,” he said in disgust. “Horse can’t put his foot down. Vet’s just had a look; thinks it’s an abscess.” He grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray. “Where’s Malise?”

“Gone to the opera.”

“Bloody fairy.”

“My God,” said Griselda, joining them. “That means Fen will have to jump. That’s all we need.”

“She jumped bloody well this afternoon,” said Driffield.

“I’d better go and tell her,” said Billy. But, glancing across the room, he saw she’d disappeared. He tried the other rooms, fighting his way through the yelling crowd, then he tried the garden, hearing laughter from behind a rosebush.

“Fuck off,” said a voice as he peered around. Two elegant young men were locked in each other’s arms.

Fen’s coat wasn’t in the cloakroom. Yes, said the attendant, a girl in a pink dress and pink shoes had just left with the minister of the arts. He assumed she was his daughter.

“She isn’t,” said Billy bleakly.

“Lucky chap,” said the attendant.

Billy returned to Rupert and told him what had happened. Rupert, who’d already drunk a bottle and a half of champagne, shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, she won’t come to any harm with him. He looked past it. Anyway these ’ere,” he jerked his head in the direction of the two secretaries, “look very accommodating. We’ll all have dinner, then go back to their place.”

“I don’t want to,” protested Billy. “I must find Fen.”

“She’ll go back to the hotel early,” said Rupert. “She heard Malise’s pep talk. She was as contrite as anything this morning.”

At dinner, the girls got sillier and sillier, and Billy’s despair deeper. Back at their flat he went to the bathroom to have a pee. The spilt talcum powder, the chaos of makeup, the tights and pants dripping over the bath, the trailing plant gasping for water, and the half-drunk gin and tonic reminded him poignantly of Janey. He longed to go back to the hotel. The redhead was pretty, but it was obvious she would much rather be in bed with Rupert. “Your friend’s a one, isn’t he?”

On the walls of her room were posters of Robert Redford and Sylvester Stallone. The bed was very narrow.

“I don’t usually do this on the first night,” she said, slipping out of her pale yellow dress with a slither of silk. Her body wasn’t as good stripped; her breasts drooped like half-filled beanbags.

“I’m awfully sorry,” Billy said later, looking down at his flaccid, lifeless cock.

“Don’t you find me attractive?” said the girl petulantly.

“It’s because you’re so beautiful you’ve completely overwhelmed me,” lied Billy. “And I’ve got a big class tomorrow, which never helps.”

With his hands and his tongue he had given her pleasure, but, rejected by her husband, she needed confirmation that men still found her irresistible. Billy could feel her being “frightfully understanding,” but he could imagine the whispering round the embassy tomorrow.

“My dear, he couldn’t get it up at all. No wonder his wife walked out.”

By a quarter to twelve Rupert was ready to go home too.

“We’d love tickets for tomorrow,” said the blonde as they left. “You will ring, won’t you?”

“I nearly couldn’t perform,” said Rupert in the taxi. “She just lay back stark naked on the bed and said, ‘Come on Campbell-Black, let’s see if you’re as good as they all say you are.’ Must be hell to be impotent.”

“I hope to God Fen’s back,” said Billy.

But to his horror her key, Number Eighty-eight, was still hanging at the reception desk.

“Jesus,” said Rupert, “there’s Malise getting out of a cab. Go and tell him about Driffield. I’ll get the key and whizz up and wait in her room. You join me when the coast’s clear.”

“Good opera?” Billy asked Malise.

“Magical,” said Malise. “I cried nonstop through the last act.”

He didn’t even seem to notice that the hall clock said half-past twelve.

“First Edition’s unfit,” said Billy. “Vet says it’s an abscess.”

“Hell,” said Malise. “Fen’ll have to jump. Does she know?”

“We didn’t tell her,” said Billy, “in case we raised her hopes and you wanted Driff to jump Anaconda.”

Malise shook his head. “Macaulay’s the better bet. You saw Fen safely into bed, did you?”

Billy nodded, blushing slightly. “Must be asleep by now.”

“Good man. I’ll tell her in the morning.”

With a growing sense of outrage, Billy and Rupert sat in Fen’s room, Rupert drinking weak brandies from Fen’s untouched duty-free bottle, Billy drinking one disgusting cup of black coffee from the sachets after another.

At three-thirty, they heard a commotion outside.

“J’ai perdu mon clef, key, you know; what St. Peter, the one with the kissed foot, had in abundance,” said a shrill voice, “so if you’d be so very kind as to let me into my room.”

In a flash Rupert was at the door, where he found Fen and a sleepy-looking maid in a dressing gown.

“Grazie,” he said to the maid, and pulled Fen inside. “What the bloody hell have you got to say for yourself?”

Fen’s hair was tousled, her brown skin flushed. Her eyes glittered, red-irised, and out of focus. She was wearing an exquisite, gray silk shirt which just covered her groin, and carrying her pink dress.

She gave a low bow.

“Buona notte, senors; or should it be buon giorno, I forget. I sheem — hic — to have got myself into the wrong room.” She backed towards the door.

“Come here,” hissed Rupert. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Do you really want to know? I’ve been having fun. When in Rome, get done by the Romans.” She opened the door into the passage, swinging on the handle.

Rupert caught her by the scruff of the neck, frog-marched her back into the room, and sat her down on the bed. Then, locking the door, he pocketed the key.

“Now, come on. Out with it.”

Fen looked at them owlishly. “I’ve been out with the minister of the arts, such charm and such finesse. He said I was a work of art myself and he bought me thish lovely shirt from Pucci.”

She stood up, pirouetted round, and collapsed onto the bed again.