She might have been speaking about her situation with Rupert and Steve. ‘I shall make a mockery of my life and ruin it,’ she repeated.
A shadow fell across her book. She jumped violently, then realized it was Steve.
It was the first time she’d been alone with him since that evening in the theatre. Even in the blazing sunshine he looked brown.
He was wearing navy blue bathing trunks and a pair of dark glasses, so she couldn’t read the expression in his eyes as he looked down at her.
As always, she felt her stomach go liquid with desire.
‘Hi stranger,’ he said softly. ‘May I talk with you?’
He sat down beside her.
‘I don’t know what game you’re playing,’ she blurted out.
‘What game, honey? You tell me.’
‘Telling me one moment you wanted me to break it off with Rupert because you were so crazy about me, then ignoring me the next. Sending me up. Telling the others my real name. Blatantly chatting up Angora just to hurt me.’
‘I’ve been doing a little more than chatting up,’ he said, pinching one of her cigarettes.
‘Do you love her?’
‘I don’t understand words like love; they’re not in my vocabulary, but she’s extremely attractive. Let’s say we enjoy each other.’
‘Maybe you do,’ said Bella steadily. ‘But not enough to stop her slipping out at dawn to have a private confab with Lazlo.’
Just for a second Steve paused.
‘How do you know?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I opened my shutters. Lazlo came home about six, no doubt from shacking up with some of the local talent. Within ten seconds, Angora was out of the house. She’d obviously been waiting for him. They had some kind of hassle, then he persuaded her to come back into the house.’
Steve shrugged his shoulders. ‘She’s entitled to a commercial break if she wants one. The programme was good enough.’
‘But don’t you see,’ Bella went on desperately, ‘they’re in cahoots together. Angora’s simply being manipulated by Lazlo. He’s pulled off a marvellous film deal for her. She’s very ambitious. He’s probably been knocking her off as well, and, in return, she’s agreed to lure you away from me. She’s pretty formidable when she pulls out the stops. I defy anyone, even you, to resist her. And Lazlo knows what I feel about you. That seeing you and Angora together is driving me round the twist. That it’s the one thing that’ll make me break it off with Rupert.’
Steve yawned so hard he nearly dislocated his jaw.
‘You always had too much imagination,’ he said. ‘And keep your trap shut, the others are coming. Hi Chrissie. Hi Rupe. The midges are terrible. You’d better come up and see my itchings sometime.’
Bella flopped down on her lilo in despair.
Rupert sat down beside her. Even on the hottest day of the year, he still had the look of a hothouse plant exposed to a killing draught. He was wearing a black shirt with the collar turned up, as if against some imagined storm, and looked at Bella with bruised, troubled eyes, and eyelids swollen from lack of sleep.
How he’d changed from the cool, bitchy self-confident little boy she’d met six months ago.
She put out her hand to stroke his face. He imprisoned it and held it against his cheek.
‘Oh, darling, we must stop fighting. I can’t stand another night like last night.’
I can’t go on torturing him much longer, she thought unhappily. I must break it off with him, but not yet. I’m not going to give Lazlo the satisfaction of thinking he directly engineered it.
Chrissie, very white, and too fat for her scarlet bikini, sat down under an umbrella, and started the
Steve dived into the pool, his muscular arms coming out of the bright turquoise water as he did a leisurely crawl to the other side.
‘It’s lovely once you get in,’ he called to Chrissie.
And eventually, after a lot of badinage, he persuaded her to join him in the water, where he chased her round the pool, tickling her, diving for her ankles, making her shriek with laughter and fear.
Rupert edged away as a particularly violent piece of splashing soaked his shirt.
‘I detest horseplay,’ he said. ‘And I don’t feel much more kindly towards Mr Benedict.’
Giggling frantically, Chrissie clambered out of the pool and ran along the edge to take refuge under the umbrella. Steve picked up a towel and, catching up, began to dry her, laughing down at her, his eyelashes stuck together with water, his blue eyes rivalling the drained sapphire of the sky. Gradually, in his arms, she calmed down and stopped giggling.
‘I’m going to oil you,’ he said. ‘And you’re going to lie in the sun and stop hiding your very considerable lights under a bushel.’
‘I’ll oil her,’ said Rupert sharply, getting to his feet and almost snatching the bottle of Ambre Solaire from Steve.
Bella felt a stab of guilt as she saw the ecstasy in Chrissie’s face as Rupert rubbed it into her back.
She returned to her lines, little red spots leaping in front of her eyes.
‘
‘What’s the largest organ in the body, five letters?’ said Chrissie.
‘Penis,’ said Angora, drifting towards them in her white silk dressing gown, carrying a photograph album, a cigarette dangling from her scarlet lips.
Chrissie giggled. ‘It can’t be. Did you sleep well?’
‘I didn’t do much sleeping, thank you, darling. But I had a lovely night.’
‘You made a bloody awful din,’ said Rupert.
‘Steve likes to hear the sound of his own vice,’ said Angora, dropping a kiss on Steve’s shoulder.
Steve’s eyes met Bella’s. See! his triumphant expression seemed to be saying.
Angora lay down on a lilo, stretching out her scarlet painted toes, admiring her sleek brown legs. Her almost Japanese slenderness always made Bella feel like a carthorse.
‘Hullo, Belladonna,’ she said. ‘You look a bit peaky, darling. Shouldn’t go to bed so early. What you need is a few late nights.’
Bella ignored her.
‘
‘Who?’ said Angora. ‘Oh, I see, you’re learning lines. You are virtuous. I haven’t had a script from Harry Backhaus yet, and we start shooting next week sometime. I gather the costumes are heaven. I do hope I’m not expected to take mine off. The set always gets so crowded.’
God, she’s hell! thought Bella. How can Chrissie look at her with such admiration.
‘Don’t you get tired of people asking you to be sexy all the time?’ said Chrissie.
‘They don’t have to ask,’ said Steve, lobbing a pebble on to Angora’s back.
‘Well it’s not something I mind,’ said Angora, ‘like being bitten by midges. Steve, darling, do light another fag and drive them away. Now I want you all to gather round and look at this photograph album.’
‘Is it yours?’ said Chrissie.
‘No — yours, but guess who keeps cropping up in it.’
She flicked a few pages.
‘There’s Rupert. Wasn’t he an adorable baby? And there’s Chrissie on a pony, and Gay at her first teenage party. It was the Hunter-Blake’s firework party. And look who’s over there.’
‘My God! It’s you,’ said Steve.
‘Wasn’t I awful? Only fourteen then and still a virgin. Look who couldn’t wait for it.’
Steve examined the photograph more closely:
‘You weren’t that bad. I wish I’d been around at the time. I’d have sorted you out.’
