Imogen

Marine and the Plaza Hotel, with its striped umbrellas folded and its dozing doorman. They passed a few elderly homosexuals looking for comfort, and guitarists from the nightclubs sleepily twanging their way home.

‘You’re too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off you,’ hummed Matt.

At the reception area of La Reconnaissance with its one naked light bulb, he took down her key and extracted a dripping purple aster from the vase on the desk. Imogen ran upstairs pressing the lights and racing to catch the next switch before it went out and plunged them into darkness.

Outside her room, he stopped. ‘Good-night little accomplice,’ he said softly, handing her the dripping purple aster.

He’s going to kiss me, she thought in rapture. But as he bent his head and touched her lips a door flew open, and out charged a fat woman in a hair net, who barged past them and rushed down the passage to the lavatory. Next minute they heard the sound of terrible retching, and both collapsed with silent laughter.

Then suddenly another door opened and there was Cable wrapped in a dark green towel, a cigarette hanging from her scarlet lips.

‘And about bloody time too,’ she said.

Inside her room Imogen wandered around in a daze. Matt had kissed her. She knew how casual kisses could be, and they’d both been drinking all day. But she didn’t think Matt was a casual person. Port-les-Pins was teeming with beautiful girls but, unlike Nicky and James, beyond a cursory approving glance, he’d never shown much interest in any of them.

She looked in the mirror, and touched her lips where he’d kissed off all her lipstick, then ran her hands over her body with a shiver of excitement — a genius in bed Cable had said. But it wasn’t just the bed she wanted.

Wipe that silly grin off your face, she kept telling herself, you’re banking on too much. She lay down on the bed, but the room swung round and round, so she got up, and tried on all her new clothes, standing swaying on the bed to see them full length. Tomorrow she’d wear the pale green sundress, or perhaps the duck-egg blue shirt with most of the buttons undone like Cable did. She imagined Matt at this moment having a blazing row with Cable, saying it’s all over between us, I love Imogen.

You mustn’t hope, she told herself sternly, he loves Cable, he only gave you those clothes to get Nicky off her back, but the words made no sense to her.

I love him, I love him, she said, pressing her burning face in the pillow. Then she carefully put the purple aster between the pages of her diary, which wouldn’t shut now because of the yellow centre bit, and lay for a long time watching the sky lighten, listening to cocks crowing and cars starting up, and children shouting, before she fell asleep.

Chapter Twelve

She was woken by the sun on her body, the same delicious feeling of happiness spreading through her like a rosy glow. She put on the new pale blue sundress and went downstairs to find the rest of the party in various stages of disintegration, having breakfast on the front and reading the papers.

Yvonne was displaying a black and blue foot on a chair for everyone to see. Having had no dinner last night, she had insisted on James ordering a boiled egg for her.

‘This egg is as hard as a bullet, Jumbo,’ she was screeching as she tried to force a buckling toast soldier into it.

‘I asked for quatorze minutes,’ said James defensively.

‘That’s fourteen, not four,’ shrieked Yvonne. ‘Why do you drink so much when you know you can’t hold it, Jumbo? You know how idiotic it makes you next morning.’

James, desperately trying to disguise his hangover, was lifting his cup of coffee with both hands. He looked terrible. Matt didn’t look much better. He smiled rather guardedly when he saw Imogen, and didn’t quite meet her eyes as he ordered her some coffee.

Nicky, looking healthy as ever, was reading the sports page of The Times.

‘Christ,’ he said, ‘Connors got knocked out in the third round.’

Imogen watched him surreptitiously move his foot forward, and rub it gently against Cable’s ankle. Cable returned the pressure, then stretched her beautiful brown legs out in front of her. She was wearing a Jean Machine rugger shirt and sitting on one of Matt’s knees, reading the Daily Mail horoscopes.

‘I do hate not getting the horoscopes till the day after. Evidently I should have had a disastrous day for romance yesterday, which simply wasn’t true, was it, darling?’ She coiled an arm round Matt’s neck, and kissed him lingeringly.

Imogen picked pieces of skin out of her coffee with a spoon, and felt happiness slowly oozing out of her like air out of a badly tied balloon.

Madame waddled out with a telegram for Matt.

‘It’s from Larry Gilmore,’ he said, when he’d opened the orange envelope. ‘“Arriving Plaza 8 p.m.,”’ he read.

‘Oh, that’s great,’ said Cable.

‘Is that Larry Gilmore, the photographer?’ said Yvonne. ‘I thought he was supposed to be a monster.’

‘He’s fine as long as you don’t burst into tears every time he calls you a stupid cow, and Bambi, his wife, is lovely,’ answered Cable defensively.

‘Bambi and Jumbo,’ said Nicky. ‘It’s getting more like the zoo every minute.’

Everyone brightened at the prospect of new blood, it would perhaps get them off each other’s backs, except Imogen who merely expected it would mean more talk about models.

‘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,