‘What d’you want to do today, Jumbo?’ said Yvonne petulantly.
‘Anything you like, darling.’
‘Oh, don’t be awkward. Anyway I’ve got to go into Marseilles to show this foot to a decent doctor.’ She turned steely forget-me-not eyes on the rest of the company. ‘They shoot horses you know, when they’re in this kind of pain.’
‘I’d like to go to the Isle of Levant and bathe nude,’ said Cable. ‘Have you any idea how lovely water feels on your naked body?’
‘Yes, every day in the bath,’ said Matt.
Nicky yawned and stretched out his legs, once again rubbing his foot against Cable’s.
‘I feel bloody unfit,’ he said. ‘I’m going to find some courts in Marseilles and have a workout. Will you be all right on the beach, darling?’ he added to Imogen, who nodded with relief.
‘I’m going into Marseilles too then,’ said Cable, shooting a spiteful glance at Imogen. ‘I think it’s my turn to buy a few new clothes today. Are you coming too, darling?’ she added to Matt, slipping a hand inside his shirt and stroking his chest.
‘Can’t, really. I’ve got to see this chap at the Bar de la Marine at twelve.’
Imogen’s face lit up. Perhaps he was staying behind to be with her.
‘Jesus, can’t you ever stop working?’ snapped Cable.
She glanced at Imogen, who was stirring her coffee and crumbling her croissant with a trembling hand, not looking at Matt and avoiding Cable’s eye. She’s got a schoolgirl’s crush on Matt, thought Cable. It had happened before fairly often, with women friends of hers Matt had been particularly kind to, or girls who worked on the paper who came round for drinks, all tarted up, then looked at Cable with dismay, realising the competition. It was all Matt’s fault for paying Imogen so much attention yesterday, as if he honestly believed that by buying her a few clothes he’d get Nicky back for her. She was a drip and Nicky didn’t like drips, and a few sophisticated clothes wouldn’t change that. Cable wasn’t in the least jealous of Imogen. The blazing row she’d had with Matt last night had been followed by the most passionate rapturous love-making. But she didn’t like him singling anyone out for attention. He never bothered with Yvonne like he did with Imogen.
As she and Matt went upstairs to get her some money, she said quite gently,
‘Darling, you must stop leading Imogen on. She’s got a terrible crush on you. She hasn’t taken her eyes off you all morning.’
Matt sat on the beach beside Imogen, reading the same page over and over again. Ever since he’d woken up he’d been kicking himself, and going round saying damn, damn, damn, damn, like Professor Higgins. Admittedly he’d been smashed out of his mind last night, or he’d never have risked casing Braganzi’s house and putting himself and Imogen in such danger, but he never should have given her that aster, or kissed her good-night. If they hadn’t been interrupted by that fat woman rushing down to the lavatory, heaven knows how far he might have gone. He had his hands full with Cable. He liked Imogen far too muuch to hurt her.
It was a soft day. The breathing of the sea was remote and gentle; the sky arched a perfect cornflower blue over their heads. But yesterday’s easy camaraderie had vanished. Imogen didn’t seem to be getting on much better with Tristram Shandy either. Matt shut his book.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said.
He bought her a Coke and a can of beer for himself, and they wandered along the beach, Imogen gathering shells and popping seaweed. As she popped away he could see her mouth moving — he loves me, he loves me not — and the look of desolation on her face when it came out, he loves me not.
They examined a dead jellyfish (like a striped red blister), overturned rocks so that little crabs scurried out, and when they walked over the dark wet saffron masses of seaweed covering the rocks, her hand slid into his as trustingly as a child to stop herself slipping. Oh Christ, why had he led her on? He had only meant to be kind.
They reached the end of the beach, and sat down to cool off under the indigo shadow cast by a huge red rock. He looked at her round innocent face longing to be kissed.
‘Imogen, darling?’
‘Yes,’ she said, her eyes lighting up.
‘How old are you?’
‘Nearly 20.’
‘And how many affairs have you had?’
‘None really,’ she blushed. ‘Not bed anyway. I expect I would have with Nicky, but I lost my pills. But I found them again. I took three yesterday,’ she added quickly.
‘Well, don’t tell him,’ said Matt, deliberately misreading her offer. ‘Nicky’s no good for you. He’s only interested in conquest, servicing totally compris in fact. He treats birds like French letters, throwing them away as soon as he’s used them.’
He picked up a handful of sand, letting it drift through his fingers.
‘Do you know what you should do after this holiday? Get away from your father and the family and Yorkshire and get a job in London. The paper’s got a terrific library; they sometimes have a vacancy. Would you like me to see if I could get you a job?’
‘Oh, yes, please,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, yes.’ To have a chance to see him every day, to cut out his stories every week and file them under ‘O’Connor, Matt’, to do telling research for him whenever he needed help with a story.
‘But I don’t really know anyone in London,’ she stammered.
Matt smiled. ‘You know me and Basil — and Cable.’
Her fingers, which seemed to be sleepwalking towards his hand, suddenly stopped at the mention of Cable. She took a hasty swig from her tin, leaving a moustache of Coke on her upper lip.
‘You should live a little,’ he said very gently. ‘Get more experience. Play the field. Break a few hearts, and have fun. You’ll soon grow out of men like Nicky.’
‘I don’t want to play the field,’ she said dolefully.
‘Cable and I have been together a long time. We understand each other.’
He was trying to tell her something, however gently, and she didn’t want to hear it. Keep out of Ireland. Hands off O’Connor. In the heat, he had pushed his damp blond hair back from his sweating forehead, showing the thick horizontal wrinkles, and the laughter lines round his eyes, which were bloodshot from drinking and lack of sleep, the heavy lids swollen. He looked thoroughly seedy and hung over, and every bit of his thirty-two years. But gazing at the battered sexy face she wondered how she could ever have loved anyone else in her life.
Matt sighed. He wasn’t finding this at all easy. ‘Look, sweetheart,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t have kissed you last night. I was extremely drunk and I enjoyed it, but I shouldn’t have done it. You’ve had enough flak from Nicky without my putting the boot in.’
Imogen watched a speedboat shooting by, rearing up thirty degrees out of the water. The noontide sky was the same colour as the sea now; you could hardly distinguish the horizon.
She leapt to her feet.
‘If you’re trying to pretend last night meant anything more to me than a friendly good-night kiss,’ she said, ‘you’re very much mistaken.’
And, turning away, she ran back down the beach towards the hotel.
‘Hell, hell, hell and damnation,’ said Matt.
A huge pair of dark glasses over her reddened eyes had got her through lunch. She could hardly eat anything, picking away like Cable. She avoided looking at Matt, who wasn’t eating much either. He announced he was going into Marseilles by himself that afternoon, to follow up a tip-off Antoine’s contact had given him at the Bar de la Marine.
‘I’ve had quite enough of Marseilles for one day,’ said Cable, who’d had a successful shopping expedition. ‘I’m going to sleep for a few hours. Such an exhausting night, darling,’ she added, running a caressing hand inside Matt’s shirt. Imogen gritted her teeth. Yvonne, looking smug and well bandaged after a trip to the doctor, said the sun was too hot for her foot, and she would like James to drive her to look over a nearby château.