The disco was called Verdi’s Requiem. Imogen was almost knocked sideways by the brush-fire smell of pot, Alice Cooper thundering out of the stereo and a mass of writhing bodies. Antoine promptly ordered champagne all round and installed them at the best table.
Immediately Nicky asked Imogen to dance.
‘You look simply terrific,’ he said as soon as they were out of earshot of the others. ‘I hardly recognised you when Matt brought you back this evening. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit offish lately. But when you kept hustling me out of the bedroom and then losing your pills.’
‘It seemed as though I was deliberately rejecting you?’
‘A deliberate rejection was exactly what it semed.’
‘I’m sorry, Nicky. I didn’t mean it.’
‘I’m sorry too. No hard feelings?’
They smiled at each other. His eyes are like velvet, thought Imogen, but was shocked to find herself adding that his forehead was too low, and his smile like a toothpaste commercial. He laid his smooth brown cheek against her hair and drew her closer to him, but her heart didn’t thump in the usual way; she even felt very strong at the knees.
‘Did you have a nice day with Matt?’ he said.
‘Yes, thank you. Did you have a nice day with Cable?’
‘It’s rather like looking after a two year old,’ said Nicky. ‘You have to keep her amused all the time and she’s into everything, particularly boutiques. I can’t think how Matt can afford her. She needs a play pen.’
The moment they got back to the table James swept her on to the floor. It was as though he had hitherto proceeded gingerly through life like a sports car towing a huge cumbersome trailer. But now suddenly the trailer had been detached (or rather stung by a jellyfish) and the sports car was careering off joyfully into the unknown.
‘Jolly handsome chap, Antoine,’ he said as his hands roved eagerly over Imogen’s body. ‘I wonder if I could get away with wearing earrings.’
‘Would it be quite the thing for a Tory candidate?’ shouted Imogen above the din of the music. ‘You’d have to have your ears pierced.’
‘My ears are pierced every day by the voice of my dear wife,’ said James petulantly.
Imogen giggled. She realised she’d had a great deal too much to drink. Oblivious that James was breathing down the front of her dress, and caressing her back, she tried to unravel her confused emotions. Whatever had happened to that undying love she had sworn to Nicky last night?
She looked across the room at him, talking earnestly to Cable, as though he was placating her for dancing so long with Imogen. She was alarmed that she felt no pang of jealousy. What price the constant nymph now?
‘Many a tear has to fall but it’s all in the game,’ sang the record player.
‘That Mimi’s a bit of all right, isn’t she?’ said James, squeezing Imogen ever tighter. ‘How do you say, “Do you bop?” in French?’
A few minutes later James and Mimi had taken the floor.
James, just about coming up to Mimi’s shoulder, happily buried his pink face in her magnificent bosom.
Imogen meanwhile was having a long dance with Antoine, who divided his time between flirting outrageously and telling her how awful he thought Cable was. ‘She is a nighthorse,’ he said finally.
‘Nightmare,’ giggled Imogen. But she was surprised.
She had thought Antoine and Cable would get on. Perhaps they were both too fond of the limelight.
‘This is a very nice place,’ she said.
‘I own it,’ said Antoine simply, looking like the devil himself, swaying in front of her, all in black with his diamonds flashing gaudily, and his white teeth gleaming tigerish in his dark gipsy face. Any moment she expected him to disappear through a trapdoor in a puff of smoke.
‘Oim jolly well pleased to see you,’ he said.
‘Mimi goes to Paris at the week-end. I come over and see you. I have villa just behind the village. We might go riding or sailing together. I have been sailing in England, at Calves.’
‘Calves?’ said Imogen, puzzled.
‘Yes, in the Island of Wight.’
‘Oh, Cowes!’ She went off into peals of laughter. She found it impossible to take him seriously.
‘I love England, but I think your countrymen behave atrocious abroad.’
He was looking at James, who, with Mimi’s help was energetically lowering his country’s prestige on the other side of the floor.
‘Mimi make the distress signals,’ he said. ‘I must salvage her. A bientôt, ma cherie,’ and kissing Imogen fondly on both cheeks, he delivered her back to the table.
James asked her to dance, and then Nicky again and then James. Cable, refusing to leave the table and the champagne, was looking absolutely thunderous, and didn’t even cheer up when Nicky made the disc jockey play one of her favourite tunes.
Fate is conspiring against me, thought Cable bitterly. For the first few days of the holiday, everything had gone so well; she had succeeded in enslaving Nicky and James, irritating Yvonne, utterly overshadowing stupid naïve Imogen, and finally most important of all continually keeping Matt on the jump. She knew how upset he had been beneath that apparent imperturbability. She had felt the whole time as though she’d been driving a coach and five with complete success. But tonight, suddenly, she felt the reins slipping out of her hands. Matt had obviously enjoyed his day with Imogen and brought her back looking quite passable — at least Nicky and James and Antoine obviously thought so and were all over her. Men always went for anything new. Cable was further irritated that Antoine hadn’t reacted to her charms.
She’d always heard what a wolf he was and he wasn’t even flickering in her direction. As for that blousy overweight Mimi, even in the gloom of the disco everyone was turning their heads and staring at her in admiration.
In the same way, Cable supposed people would stare at an elephant if it came through the door. And then Nicky wasn’t being as tractable as usual. That very afternoon she’d caught him exchanging surreptitious but no less smouldering glances with a blonde nymphette at the water-skiing club. She’d have to give him some concessions soon. She drained her glass of champagne and banged it imperiously on the table.
‘Get another bottle,’ she ordered Matt.
Totally ignoring her, Matt turned towards Imogen, who was coming off the floor with James. Her hair was tumbled from dancing, her cheeks flushed, her breasts rising and almost falling out of the low cut dress.
‘My turn I think,’ he said, getting to his feet.
‘Beautiful, beautiful girl,’ said Antoine. ‘How I love Yorkshire girls.’
Nicky was about to agree with him, and claim responsibility for discovering her, then, glancing at Cable’s face, thought better of it.
‘Isn’t that Bianca Jagger over there?’ said James, peering through the gloom. ‘I’m going to ask her to dance.’
Imogen had been waiting to dance with Matt all evening. There was a thrill of excitement in the pit of her stomach, as, loose-jointed, he swayed in front of her, his lazy triangular eyes amused yet approving.
‘You’re having a good evening, darling. They’ve been after you like wasps round a water melon.’
‘It’s entirely due to you,’ she said. She looked across the room at Nicky and Cable who were deep in conversation. Nicky was holding Cable’s hand and apparently trying to calm her down.
‘I’m sorry it didn’t work — getting Nicky off Cable, I mean.’
Matt shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m not losing any sleep,’ he said. The music accelerated, the colours were shifting like a kaleidoscope. The floor was filling up and they were constantly thrown together. Matt put his hands on her shoulders to protect her. She was finding it difficult to breathe.
Suddenly, he buried his face in her neck. Her body turned to liquid.