Octavia

lunch. He shouldn’t spend quite so long every day pouring drinks down young men who ought to be back in their offices at the Stock Exchange.’

Despite the white heat of the day I suddenly felt as though ice cold water was being dripped down my neck. Had Ricky and Joan got wind of Xander’s proclivities? God help him if they had.

‘Xander does most of his deals over lunchtime drinks,’ I protested.

At that moment Gussie joined us.

‘Are you talking about Xander?’ she said, ripping off her petalled tea cosy. ‘I always did think he was the most glamorous man ever — after Jeremy that is.’

Joan gave a wintry smile.

‘I gather from Tavy that Pamela is divine too,’ said Gareth, having gathered no such thing. ‘But I can’t believe you’ve got married daughters, you look so young.’

Joan patted her sculptured blue curls. ‘I’m going to be a grandmother soon.’

‘How exciting,’ shrieked Gussie. ‘You didn’t tell me Xander was having a baby, Tavy.’

‘No, my other daughter,’ said Joan. ‘She only got married in March, but they don’t believe in waiting, unlike Xander and Pammie who’ve been married two years.’

‘Oh that’s not long,’ said Gussie, soothingly. ‘I know she’ll get pregnant soon.’

‘She might,’ said Joan, ‘if Xander spent more time at home.’

I flushed and was about to contradict her, when Gussie said, ‘Alison was only married in March? Then you must be an expert on weddings. I bet it was lovely.’

‘It was rather a success. Poor Ricky had to sell a farm to pay for it. Perhaps you saw the photographs in The Tatler?’

‘I believe I did,’ lied Gussie.

And they were off: Searcy’s, The General Trading Company, Peter Jones, soft furnishings and duvets, and cast iron casseroles, and ‘weren’t lots of little bridesmaids in Laura Ashley dresses much sweeter than grown up ones’. Gussie really ought to cut a disc.

‘Alison’s husband, Peter, is an absolute charmer,’ Joan was saying, ‘we like him awfully. They spent their honeymoon in the Seychelles.’

The bitch! God how I wanted to hold her underneath her horrible, chlorinated, aquamarine water, until her great magenta face turned purple.

I watched the Red Admirals burying their faces in the buddleia. I wished Jeremy would tear himself away from the first editions. A great wave of loneliness swept over me.

‘If you’re in a hurry for a wedding dress,’ said Joan, ‘I’ve got a little woman who can run up things awfully quickly. Shall I give her a ring?’

I knew she was only handing out largesse to Gussie like nuts at Christmas to emphasize her disapproval of me.

‘Would you mind if I washed my hair, Joan?’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘I’ve brought my own shampoo.’

‘Of course not; help yourself. Use my bedroom; there are plenty of towels in the hot cupboard.’

And arsenic in the taps, I muttered, walking towards the house, feeling her hatred boring into my back. She was probably glad of an excuse to question Gussie about me and Gareth. As I crossed the lawn I deliberately didn’t look into the library to see if I could see Jeremy.

Suddenly a voice with a slight foreign accent said, ‘Hullo, Octavia.’

I gave a shudder of revulsion as I looked up into the coarse, sensual face of Andreas Katz, porn-king and multimillionaire.

‘What are you doing here?’ I said, not bothering to keep the hostility out of my voice.

‘Staying here.’

So this was the old admirer Ricky was talking about.

‘Let me monopolize you for a minute,’ he said, taking my arm. I felt his fingers, warm and sweaty, enveloping it. I moved away, but his grip tightened.

‘Come and look at Joan’s rose-garden,’ he said. ‘I gather it’s quite exceptional.’

I could see the line on his forehead where the man-tan ended and the gunmetal grey hair began. He was a man who seldom ventured out of doors. His eyes were so dark the pupils were indistinguishable from the iris, and always looked so deeply and knowingly into mine, I felt he knew exactly the colour my pants were. He was wearing a black shirt and silver paisley scarf which blended perfectly with the gunmetal hair. I supposed he was handsome in a brutal, self-conscious way, but I could never look at him without realizing what a really evil man he was. I was surprised Joan allowed him into the house. Inflation makes strange bed fellows.

As well as owning strip clubs and half the girly magazines in London, he also produced a prestigious semi- pornographic magazine called Hedonist which ran features by intellectuals alongside photographs of naked girls with Red Indian suntans lying on fur counterpanes. It was regarded as the English answer to Playboy. For a number of years now he had been chasing me in a leisurely fashion, offering me larger and larger sums to be photographed. I always refused him. I didn’t fancy a staple through my midriff. I felt towards him that contempt with which one regards a bath rail in an hotel bathroom, convinced one will never be old and frail enough to need it.

I stopped to admire a purple rose. Andreas admired my figure, which, in its sopping wet bikini, left nothing to the imagination.

He pressed a clenched fist gently against my stomach.

‘When are you going to come and pose for me?’ he asked.

‘I’m not. I don’t need the bread.’

‘You never know,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s gilt-edged any more. Not even your beautiful hair. Roots cost money to be touched up.’

‘It’s natural,’ I snapped.

‘I hear Seaford-Brennen’s are in a spot of bother,’ he went on. I could feel his hot breath on my shoulder.

‘Oh for God’s sake, why does everyone keep telling me this? Of course they’re all right. They’ve been all right for over fifty years.’

Andreas splayed his fingers out and caressed my rib cage. He was the only man I knew who gave me that horrible squirming feeling of excitement. I imagined the hundreds of girls and the millions of grubby girly pictures those fingers had flicked through. I moved off sharply and buried my face in a dark red rose. He lit a cigar with a beautiful manicured hand, holding it between finger and thumb like a workman. I could feel him watching me.

‘Why don’t you stop staring?’

‘A Katz can look at a Queen.’ He’d made that joke a hundred times before. ‘You’re a very beautiful girl, Octavia, but not a very bright one. I’ll pay you fifteen hundred for one photographic session. Why don’t we have dinner next week and discuss it? And that wouldn’t be the end, you know. I could give you everything you want.’

‘Well, I certainly don’t want you,’ I said, turning and walking back. ‘And if people saw the goods displayed so blatantly across your gatefold, they might not be interested in purchasing them any more.’

Andreas smiled the knowing smile of a crafty old animal.

‘I’ll get you in the end, baby, and by then it’ll be on my terms. You wait and see. By the way, what’s Gareth Llewellyn doing closeted with Ricky?’

‘He’s spending the weekend with us on the boat.’

Andreas laughed. ‘So he’s your latest. No wonder you’re not interested in bread at the moment.’

I looked towards the house, the wistaria above the library was nearly over and shedding its petals in an amethyst carpet over the lawn. Out of the library window I caught sight of Jeremy watching us. I turned and smiled warmly at Andreas.

‘There’s a beautiful girl down at the pool, talking to Joan. Why don’t you go and sign her up instead of me?’ I said and, patting him on the cheek, ran laughing into the house.

Joan Seaford must have got the most sexless bedroom in the world, with its eau de nil walls, sea green carpet, and utterly smooth flowered counterpane tucked neatly under the pillows so they lay like a great sausage across the top of the bed. On the chest of drawers stood large framed Lenare photographs of Pamela and Alison, looking mistily glamorous in pearls. There were also a large photograph of Peter,