was a scholarship boy with a chip as big as a plank on his shoulder. Then he ended up with a first.’
‘He’s got a mind like a steel trap but he’s not at all academic,’ added Gussie. ‘All he’s ever wanted to do is make masses of money. He’s got his own company now, with thousands of little men working for him putting up sky-scrapers. He’s the most energetic man I’ve ever met.’
‘He sounds exhausting,’ I said, filling Jeremy’s drink.
‘Not really,’ said Jeremy. ‘You occasionally feel you want to add water, but on the whole he’s fine.’
‘Won’t he get bored on the boat?’
‘Not with you around. He loves girls.’
‘He has time for them?’
‘Oh, yes,’ sighed Gussie. ‘He’s awfully attractive. He makes you feel all body, somehow.’
Dinner was a success. Luigi’s had surpassed themselves. Both Jeremy and Gussie were extremely impressed.
Over coffee, I opened Gussie’s chocolates.
‘Oh, we oughtn’t to,’ said Gussie, rootling round for a soft centre. ‘We bought them for you.’
It was then that I played my trump card. Turning to Jeremy I said, ‘You never let on you were
How sweet he looked when he blushed.
‘And you’ve actually read them?’
‘Of course. I know most of your poems by heart. I like the one about Victoria Station late at night best.’ I reeled off a few lines.
After that nothing stopped him. The occasional murmur from me was all he needed. I didn’t listen to what he was saying, I was too busy gazing hypnotically into his eyes. It was Gussie who finally halted him, when she’d finished the chocolates.
‘Darling, if we’re going to Gareth’s, it’s gone ten o’clock.’
He was all contrition. ‘Sweetheart, I
‘Unlike me,’ said Gussie, without rancour. ‘Let’s quickly do the washing-up.’
‘Absolutely not,’ I said firmly. I wasn’t going to have her finding Luigi’s take-away carrier bags in the kitchen.
‘Oh, well, if you insist. Can I go to the loo?’
Jeremy and I went into the drawing-room.
‘There you are,’ I said, pointing to his books on one of the bottom shelves. I’d taken the jackets off and dirtied them up a bit.
He looked at me for a second. ‘You’re very unexpected, you know.’
‘I am?’
‘Yeah. When we met last week I thought you were one of those impossibly beautiful girls, incapable of doing anything but look glamorous. Now I find you know how to make a flat look wonderful, you cook like an angel, and you seem to know more about books than any woman I’ve ever met!’
‘I aim to please,’ I said. ‘Have you got a cigarette?’
‘Of course.’ He lit one for me.
‘Gussie seems determined to get me off with this Gareth man.’
‘Gussie’s a romantic; she longs for everyone to be as happy as she is. I’m sure you’ll like him. Most women do.’
‘I’m choosy,’ I said carefully. ‘I prefer to do my own hunting.’
For the first time we really looked at each other, slowly, lingeringly, exploring each other’s faces, unable to tear our eyes away.
‘Stop it,’ he said, but quite gently. ‘Gussie’ll be back in a minute.’
The hot June night blazed with stars. We drove through London with the roof down and the wireless blaring, in wild spirits. We were all a bit tight. As it was only a two-seater I had insisted on sitting in the luggage compartment on the right side so I could catch Jeremy’s eye in the driving mirror. When we swung round corners I let my fingers rest lightly on his shoulder.
Suddenly I felt a pang. Perhaps it was a bit much trying to nick him from Gussie. Then I saw Gussie put her hand on his thigh, not in a very sexy way, just in a friendly gesture of togetherness, and I was shot through with jealousy. The pang disappeared. Any girl who let herself get as fat as Gussie deserved to lose a man like Jeremy anyway.
I managed to show as much leg as possible as I got out of the car. In the row of large white, elegant Kensington houses, Gareth Llewellyn’s stood out like a sore thumb. It was painted violet, with a brilliant scarlet door. How ostentatious can you get, I thought.
Unexpectedly, the door was answered by a girl with long red hair, eyes the colour of greengages and endless legs.
‘Mr West,’ she said, giving Jeremy a pussy-cat smile. ‘Come in. Mr Llewellyn is upstairs; perhaps you’d follow me.’
On the third floor, standing in the doorway, stood a tall, thickset man, smoking a cigar. Jeremy collapsed into his arms, clutching at his shirt and gasping out some story about having become separated from the main party with which he had scaled all but the final peak. ‘Brandy,’ he croaked and, staggering past the man with the cigar, collapsed onto a pile of cushions. Gussie shrieked with laughter.
‘I think he’s a bit tight. Hullo Gareth darling,’ she said, kissing him. ‘This is Octavia Brennen. Isn’t she a knockout?’
‘How do you do?’ I said, putting on my society voice because I was embarrassed.
‘Very well, thank you,’ he mimicked me, looking me over very slowly, like a judge examining a show hack.
He turned and smiled at Gussie. ‘She’s beautiful, Gus. For once you haven’t exaggerated.’
‘Are you sure you two haven’t met before?’ said Gussie. ‘I should have thought you would have, being jet- setters and all that.’
Gareth Llewellyn examined me a bit more and shook his head.
‘No, I never forget a body. Did she really come up the stairs? I thought girls like that only came down the chimney at Christmas time.’
His voice was low in both senses of the word, with a soft but very discernable Welsh accent. I had the feeling he was laughing at me. Gussie shrieked with more giggles; she was beginning to get seriously on my nerves.
We joined Jeremy in a room which looked like the sunset people walk hand-in-hand into, at the end of technicolor films — brilliant pink walls, covered in books and paintings, scarlet curtains, parquet glimmering in pools round flamingo-coloured long-haired rugs, piles of white fur cushions and a long orange sofa. It was vulgar, but it worked. Papers were scattered over the floor and the girl who’d let us in started picking them up.
‘I love your cushions,’ said Gussie, collapsing onto a pile beside Jeremy.
‘I took my hangover to Habitat last Saturday and bought them. At least they keep everyone horizontal,’ said Gareth, winking at me and moving towards a bookshelf of leather-bound volumes. The next moment he’d pressed a button and the entire works of Walter Scott slid back to reveal a vast cocktail cabinet.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘What would anyone like?’
He was absolutely
His skin was swarthy, and his thick black hair, prematurely streaked with grey, grew over his collar and in long sideboards down his cheeks. He was wearing light grey corduroy trousers and a dark blue shirt, open at the neck to show a mat of black hair. His height and massive shoulders didn’t entirely draw the eye away from a thickening waistline.
He handed me a drink. ‘There you are, baby. It’s a real L.O.’
‘L.O.?’
