I imagined them playing it back to each other in bed, drinking Charles Heidsieck and laughing themselves sick. Gareth leaned forward and switched it off. Then he said:
‘Annabel baby, go and get us some coffee, and see that Xander’s safely put into a taxi.’
She smiled and left us, quietly closing the door behind her. I noticed with loathing that there wasn’t a single crease in her black suit.
For a minute Gareth’s fingers drummed on the table. Then he said,
‘For the last three years you’ve been conducting your jet set existence entirely on the firm. Even if we write off your joint junketings with Xander, you owe nearly ?6,000. I want you out of that flat by the end of the month and I want the keys to your company car tomorrow. Here are your last quarter’s bills, electricity, telephone for ?425 — all discovered unpaid in Massingham’s desk. I want those settled up. They’re all final reminders. And the loan to the firm must be paid off as soon as possible.’
I felt icy cold. I wasn’t going to cry, I wasn’t. I dug my nails into the palms of my hands.
Gareth walked down the table until he was standing over me. Against my will, I looked up. His eyes were as hard and as black as the coal his forefathers had hewn from the mines. In them I could read only hatred and utter contempt, as though he was at last avenging himself for all the wilful havoc I’d created in the past, for breaking up Cathie and Tod, for jeopardizing Gussie and Jeremy.
‘You’re nothing but a bloody parasite,’ he said softly. ‘I’m going to make you sweat, beauty. No more helping yourself to everyone’s money and their men too. The party’s over now. You’re going to get a job and do an honest day’s work like everyone else.’
I couldn’t look away. I sat there, hypnotized like a rabbit by headlights.
‘As your creditor,’ he went on, ‘I’d quite like to know when you’re going to pay up.’
‘I’ll get it next week,’ I whispered.
‘How?’
‘I’ll sell shares.’
He looked at me pityingly.
‘Can’t you get it into your thick head that unless I can put a bomb under them Seaford-Brennen aren’t worth a bean any more? We’ve also had enquiries from the Inland Revenue; you owe them a bit of bread too.’
The Debtor’s Prison loomed. I gripped the edge of the table with my fingers. Then I lost my temper.
‘You bloody upstart,’ I howled. ‘You smug, fat, Welsh prude, walking in here and playing God. Well God’s got a great deal more style than you. You’re nothing but a bully and a thug. They’ll all resign here if you go on humiliating them. See if they don’t, and then you’ll look bloody silly after all your protestations about waving a fairy wand, and turning us into a miracle of the eighties. God, I loathe you, loathe you.’ My voice was rising to a scream now. ‘Marching in here, humiliating Xander and Tommy Lloyd, with that fat slob Ricky lapping it all up.’
I paused, my breath coming in great sobs. Then suddenly something snapped outside me. It was my bra strap, beastly disloyal thing. I felt my right tit plummet. Gareth looked at me for a second, then started to laugh.
‘You should go on the stage, Octavia; you’re utterly wasted on real life,’ he said. ‘Why not pop down to Billingsgate? I’m sure they’d sign you up as a fishwife.’
‘Don’t bug me,’ I screamed, and groping behind me, gathered up a cut glass ash tray and was just about to smash it in his face when he grabbed my wrist.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he snapped. ‘You can’t afford to be done for assault as well. Go on, drop it,
I loosened my fingers; the ashtray fell with a thud on the carpet.
I slumped into a chair, trembling violently. Gareth gave me a cigarette and lit it for me.
‘I’ll pay it all back,’ I muttered, through gritted teeth. ‘If I do some modelling I can make that kind of bread in six months.’
‘Things have changed, beauty. You can’t just swan back to work and pull in ten grand a year. There isn’t the work about. You’re twenty-six now, not seventeen, and it shows. Anyway, you haven’t the discipline to cope with full-time modelling, and it won’t do you any good gazing into the camera hour after hour; you’d just get more narcissistic than ever. For Christ’s sake get a job where you can use your brain.’
My mind was running round like a spider in a filling-up bath, trying to think of a crushing enough reply. I was saved by the belle — the luscious Mrs Smith walking in with three cups of coffee. She put one down beside me.
‘I don’t want any,’ I said icily.
‘Oh grow up,’ said Gareth. ‘If you give Annabel a ring she’ll help you to get a job and find you somewhere to live.’
I got to my feet.
‘She’s the last person I’d accept help from,’ I said haughtily, preparing to sweep out. But it is very difficult to make a dignified exit with only one bra strap, particularly if one trips over Mrs Smith’s strategically placed briefcase on the way.
‘I expect Annabel’s even got a safety pin in her bag, if you ask her nicely,’ said Gareth.
I gave a sob and fled from the room.
Chapter Sixteen
From that moment I was in a dumb blind fury. The only thing that mattered was to pay Seaford-Brennen back, and prove to Gareth and that over-scented fox, Mrs Smith, that I was quite capable of getting a job and fending for myself.
I went out next day and sold all my jewellery. Most of it, apart from my grandmother’s pearls, had been given me by boyfriends. They had been very generous. I got ?9,000 for the lot — times were terrible, said the jeweller but at least that would quieten the income tax people for a bit, and pay off the telephone and the housekeeping bills. A woman from a chic second-hand-clothes shop came and bought most of my wardrobe for ?600: it must have cost ten times that originally. As she rummaged through my wardrobe I felt she was flaying me alive and rubbing in salt as well. I only kept a handful of dresses I was fond of. There were also a few bits of furniture of my own, the Cotman Xander had given me for my 21st and the picture of the Garden of Eden over the bed. Everything else belonged to the firm.
In the evening Xander rang:
‘Sweetheart, are you all right? I meant to ring you yesterday but I passed out cold. And there hasn’t been a minute today. How was your session with Gareth?’
‘You could hardly say it was riotous,’ I said. ‘No one put on paper hats. How did you get on this morning?’
‘Well that wasn’t exactly riotous either. He certainly knows how to kick a chap when he’s down. I thought about resigning — then I thought why not stick around and see if he can put us on the map again. He is quite impressive, isn’t he?’
‘
‘Well tell it not in Gath or the Clermont, or anywhere else,’ said Xander. ‘But I must confess I do rather like him; he’s so unashamedly butch.’
‘Et tu Brute,’ I said. ‘Look, how soon can I put my two decent pictures up for auction at Sotheby’s?’
‘About a couple of months; but you can’t sell pictures — it’s blasphemy.’
It took a long time to persuade him I had to.
I spent the next week in consultation with bank managers, accountants, tax people, until I came to the final realization that there was nothing left. I had even buried my pride and written to my mother, but got a gin-splashed letter by return saying she had money troubles of her own and couldn’t help.
‘You can’t get your thieving hands on the family money either,’ she had ended with satisfaction. ‘It’s all in
